Bulma startled awake after a second night of troubled sleep. While her future son's presents had tempered the first night's ghosts, now that he had left the rain of fire from a laughing sky fully consumed her dreams. Bulma rubbed her eyes and felt her pillow in one quick motion then swiftly flipped and aimlessly fluffed the pillow to hide the reason.
"The wife of the Saiyan prince shouldn't be crying," she thought.
But when Bulma went to shift her shoulders back, she discovered another reason her mind went to darker places. Vegeta was not in bed. She looked to the clock.
"2:17? What the hell…" she mumbled as she sat up and looked around.
Even in the dark, she could tell he never came into the room. The faint smells of his sweaty clothes from the "not-as-air-tight-as-advertised" sports equipment hamper and the shower mist from under the bathroom door were completely absent.
She turned on the nightstand lamp. She put her slippers on, walked around the bed to the bathroom and took her robe from the hook to cover her slip. After washing her face and checking that her eyes looked clear, she left for the kitchen.
"You haven't lost track of time this bad in forever, but with everything… You're just in the kitchen eating like you normally do before you come to me," she thought coming down the staircase.
But as she turned the corner to the kitchen she saw no light drifting into the hallway. She almost jogged the rest of the distance to the kitchen.
Bulma turned on the lights. The chair he always sat in was still neatly tucked under the table. No pile of dishes in the sink. She went to the fridge. All his food was there, untouched, jus—just waiting to be reheated in the microwave.
"Is he still training? Wha—?" her brain stopped as she ran from the kitchen, leaving the refrigerator door wide open for the timed motor to eventually close.
Bulma slid slightly and lost her balance trying to come to a stop at the viewing port. She had not noticed she was running. She finally stopped sliding and put her nose to the glass.
Vegeta was on his stomach. He never slept on his stomach. And he wasn't wearing his breastplate. It sat neatly next to the internal controls. His cloth clothing was all torn up and his skin was bruised and raw underneath, it was almost if…
Bulma ran the few steps to the door. She pulled up the settings on the external control panel. She took a sharp breath through her clinched teeth as she formed her fists.
Maximum.
The gravity and lasers could no longer critically injure him now that he was a god, which is why she assumed the bio reader had not automatically turn off the gravity like it should have.
"At least the motion sensors turned off the lasers," she thought ordering the computer to turn off the room and open the locked door.
Bulma stiffly walked over to her husband. She knelt next to him and gently rolled him over. No injuries that wouldn't completely heal in a few days that she saw. She lifted her head and glanced at the scorch marks across the floor.
"The lasers would have turned off after 20 seconds if he just stood still. He must have trained till he dropped once he realized that."
Bulma stood up. She glared at the proof of his sin around his eyes and nose. "You promised," she whimpered. "You promised," she said louder as she kicked him. He did not react, or even budge for that matter. She began kicking him over and over again.
"You promised! You promised not to never deliberately hurt yourself again when you almost killed your-Fucking-self after Trunks left the first time, YOU FUCKING APE! YOU STUPID FUNKING APE! GOD DAMN GORILLA! PRINCE OF SHIT-FACED ORANGUTANS!" Bulma flew into every primate-related curse her rage-blinded brain could string together as she kicked him over and over again.
Eventually the pain in her foot got through to her head. She held up her throbbing foot as Vegeta moaned slightly and twitched his eyebrows.
"At least one part of you is as hard as a rock…" Bulma said watching a new tear add its mark to his otherwise placid face.
Bulma limped to the side room and opened the door to a small wash room. She grabbed the bucket there, but instead of filling it up at that faucet, she carried it out of the suite.
About 15 minutes later she returned, bucket full of water with every ice cube she could find. She stood over her sleeping husband and readied it. She would not give him an escape from the proof of his crime on his face, so she dumped it on a more — sensitive region.
Vegeta gasped awake as ice tortured his crown jewels. His knees jerked up violently as he bent over to his side, hands instinctively grasping towards his nether regions. "FUCKING BALLS! SHIT Fucking shit," he growled trying to crawl away from whatever was cold around him. His still-awaking brain thought it registered the sound of clanking metal on something, but the next sound registered perfectly.
"FUCKING BALLS!? YOUR BALLS WON'T BE FUCKING ANYTHING FOR A LONG TIME YOU — you PRINCE OF BABOONS!"
"Yahe!" Vegeta gasped and looked over as he continues to crawl on his side. "Bu-Bulma? What? You? …" Then the pain from his burses reregistered in his brain. "Awe…he. Wha?" Realization finally dawned on his face, "Awe crap."
Vegeta held his right arm out as he continued to crawl away from the water, "Bulma, Darling, this isn't wha-"
"Isn't what it looks like?! BULL SHIT!"
"Sweetie please. I didn't mean-"
"Didn't mean to deliberately hurt yourself again?! After you-"
"I DIDN'T MEAN TO PASS OUT IN HERE!" Vegeta finally yelled over her. "I'M S … I'm sorry…" he finished as he finally made it to the wall.
The emotion in his voice made her pause.
Vegeta finished propping himself up but after several moments of wincing he gave up on pulling his legs in. There was no point. He had been caught. "My fault… everything…"
Bulma watched her normally stoic husband lie body and soul prone to the world and start to sob.
"… why must everything I touch turn to ash? Why…"
Vegeta's heart-wrenched plea to the Fates stopped Bulma in her tracks. She had only heard him say that phrase once before… When he came to her drunk a few weeks after the Cell Games saying he couldn't take the pain anymore and demanded she use whatever voodoo curse she placed on his emotions to make it go away. But… he didn't smell like alcohol when she looked him over.
"I deserved that fate, everything, oblivion, but you and everyone else…." Vegeta crossed his arms gripping his shoulders and bowed his head. "This is worse than death, worse than everything, everything I've ever done!"
"Vegeta this wasn't y-"
"Bullshit!" He began to choke, "Why did I trust that idiot when he said everything was ready. If we had taken just 5 minutes… we would have noticed the seal was missing… we could have put the jar with your tools in the garage you packed, or even its own dinocap! I let my rage blind me… and it cost us everything," he whimpers the last few words.
Bulma understood how he felt. Until they returned and met Roshi, she thought she wasn't fast enough with putting out the fire and the seal had burned up.
"I don't like feeling like this again, the Hate," he growled the word. "No direction. No recourse. It's ripping through me like a flash flood in a desert." He let go of his arms and looked at his hands. "All the old withered runs you don't even know they are there until it rains and you drown in the sudden rush."
Vegeta sobbed grabbing the sides of his head. "This was supposed to be over," he cries out desperately. "When Babidi ripped my soul open, he drained out the putrefied cyst that had been rotting my insides my whole life. I'm supposed to be healing for the first time, not just a superficial scar that hides the truth of the wound beneath from the world." He gripped his hair and tilted his head back, "I'm a god, god damn it! A pure spirit with a kind heart! I'm not supposed to feel this way anymore…"
"Vegeta, please don't hate yourse-"
"Then who am I supposed to hate?!," he screamed, "Kakarot again?! Our son or his woman?! Even you?!"
Bulma saw him begin to pull out his hair. "Vegeta don't… covering up one pain with another only leaves you twice as bro-"
Vegeta's head snapped sideways and glared at her, "Don't quote that bullshit at me, Woman!"
The venom in his eyes caused Bulma to freeze. He had not look at her like that in years. Not since before Buu.
Vegeta's eyes instantly widened and let out a small gasp. He knew it was unconscious, but it only made it hurt worse than if it was just one of her emotional taunts. She had actually shuddered and shifted her body weight to pull away.
Vegeta's hands dropped lifelessly to his lap. He clinched his eyes and turned his head down and away. "I wasn't trying to hurt myself. I needed to think. Training helps me think, but it wasn't working. So I kept turning it up and up. Then I just cranked it all the way. I was impatient. I did not mean to worry you."
He opened his eyes and glanced at her feet, unable to lift them higher. "What are you doing up anyway? You normally sleep like you're… I mea-. You're normally out like a light all night. You roll off the bed or something because I wasn't there to be your foot rest?"
Bulma knew him long enough to know a dodge when she heard it. She crossed her arms. "Actually, yes. I did. Falling three feet to a concrete floor is just how I wanted to wake up today."
Vegeta knew her long enough to know sarcasm when he heard it. He closed his eyes but the muscles of his face refused to smirk. "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe we should rig the bed to shove you off instead of the god-awful siren you sleep through every morning?"
Bulma saw and heard the numbness in his comeback. She gently floated down next to him. Not wanting to get blood on her head from his open shoulder, she placed her right shoulder into the wall next to him and leaned her head against it. She then smiled and moved her left hand gently onto his stomach. She began lightly tracing the lines of his muscles until it got the desired effect.
Vegeta saw her give that smile.
"Just ignore it, Bulma," he said. "It's always had a mind of its own around you."
Bulma began moving her hand down anyway, "But it must be so cold after I-"
Vegeta grabbed her hand and met her gaze looking up at him. "Didn't you just say 'covering up one pain with another only leaves you twice as broken'?" He was relieved when he saw in her face that she understood.
Bulma moved her hand to his chest. "Do you want to go get your snack?"
"I'm not hungry…"
Bulma closed her eyes knowing what it took for a Saiyan to refuse food. "Shower and sleep then?"
"Yes." Vegeta answered bracing against the wall to stand.
Bulma watched him slightly sway as he slowly but deliberately walked towards the door.
"trunks ZEE two KEY," she said suddenly.
Vegeta stopped. "Tsk," he went slightly turning his head. "You have no idea what you just said."
"No. But I can guess from the context that I have always heard it in." He felt her smile on the back of his neck.
"Whatever." Vegeta began walking forward again.
Bulma watched him tightly grip the handrail as he climbed the steps. Truth was she knew exactly what it meant. In fact, if she hadn't been gasping for other reasons at the moment she would have gasped at hearing it. But she could never let him know that, he would feel so betrayed.
Even after the past decade, he was so much like a feral cat. Just tame enough to eat in your presence and be petted on its terms, but if you made a move it didn't like it would run off hissing and hide. And that was the last thing Vegeta needed, especially for the next few days. Maybe even a few weeks. He must feel so humiliated right now.
She thought back to the day of Goku's funeral. She and Trunks had just finished prepping the time machine to head back in the afternoon and stepped into the house to clean up and change.
"Trunks."
They both yipped in surprise and spun around. Vegeta had been waiting in a shadow near the door.
"Vegeta! That wasn't nice!" she pointed at him shouting. "Scaring us like that!"
Vegeta sneered, "That's exactly what I'd expect from a weak Earth woman."
"Hey! Don't talk about Mother like that! She's stronger than you'll ever know!"
Surprisingly he didn't snap back at Trunks. If anything, he looked… nervous?
"I need to talk to you Trunks," he said, rather gently too. He looked at her, "Alone."
Trunks was also caught off guard by his tone. "…Okay."
Vegeta glared at him.
"I mean, Yes Sir," he said standing straight.
Bulma walked in the opposite direction and disappeared, but she wasn't about to leave them alone.
Bulma walked into the security room. Having the alien that had nearly destroyed the Earth as a house guest had gotten the guards reassigned to other buildings for secrecy, so she monitored everything herself and deleted suspicious recordings. But as she sat down she mused that now that he was more likely to be recognized from the Cell Games and was the father of her baby, if it wasn't time to start letting the extremely loyal ones back into the house.
She noticed robots starting to repair blast marks in a hallway in the direction they walked. Apparently, whatever was said ended in the usual argument. Vegeta would kill her if he knew she watched him like this, but her mother's aesthetic stubbornness had led to something in the house that only spies normally had access to, pinhole fiber optic cameras and sound bugs.
Bulma traced the footage of the encounter and set the computer to combine the multiple angles to the 3-D table display. Then she pulled up a chair, crossed her arms, and began to watch.
As Vegeta walked them to the family kitchen, Bulma became fixated on his face as it kept losing color. By the time they reached the empty kitchen, he was white as a piece of paper. Almost the same shade that — to her horror, seriously, at his age?! — the virgin prince had turned when she had led him to her bedroom. But the sounds and faces he made compensated for his inexperience that first night. She'd swear he had never yanked himself as a teenager.
When Vegeta stopped, he kept his back to Trunks. He crossed his arms and stayed silent for several moments.
"Father?" Trunks asked eventually.
Bulma used the controls to freeze and rewind. She turned the image around. Luckily for her, Vegeta had been looking dead center at a lens.
What had looked angry from the back had a very different view from the front. His arms weren't folded like they normally were. He was gripping his shirt. He was… shaking… and trying to hide it.
"What could you possibly be scared of?" she asked out loud.
"Trunks… did your mother ever tell you what happened when I returned to Earth and she showed you to me the first time and told me your name?"
"What did that god-awful argument have to do with anything?" she thought back remembering his venom over the baby.
"No, never," Trunks answered perplexed.
"Well… without going into details your mother proclaimed you HER son and you were to be raised an Earthling and have absolutely nothing to do with your ancestry by me— like 'Goku'," he hatefully mocked his name.
Both Bulma and Trunks seethed but kept quiet. It was the day of his funeral, asshole…
"Truth is… Trunks, I actually approved."
Both Bulma's and Trunks' eyes widened.
"When I heard your name was Trunks and that she wanted you to have nothing to do with your Saiyan blood, I gave your mother 10 times the vitriol she was throwing at me be-because…. Trunks is a Saiyan name."
"What?!" Bulma shouted.
"Fa-Father?" Trunks asked surprised.
"You, were so tiny," Vegeta continued, "I could have missed you popping out by… minutes. That name might not yet have even been on the official records on this planet. I had to give you something, anything, to make you not like— HIM. … And even if it was, you were so young and your mother's noble family here is so powerful, she could alter your name at any time. So… I used her hatred of me to protect your Saiyan heritage."
There was silence for a long time in both rooms.
"Trunks is a word technically, not a name," Vegeta broke the silence, "I'm sure there was name version of the word considering its meaning, but I do not know it.
"I was… 5," Vegeta continued after an extended pause, "When I lost everything. Other than the names of servants I bothered learning and the heroes in our religious histories I'm sure all parents hammered into their offspring at that age… I know nothing."
Bulma watched him silently stutter between large breaths practicing his next words.
"I'm sure if I went back in time and showed myself to my father, I know I'd be just as big as disappointment to him as you are with me. Tsk, there is no denying you're my seed in that regard."
Trunks took a sharp breath and opened his mouth to respond, but then slowly let it out unable to find words to vibrate it with.
"I am a transitory individual to your people and planet, and despite the superficial similarities the deeper levels of your language are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, and time has run out for more elegant craftsmanship…
"Trunks means 'Unbreakable Strength' as in the foundation of a building. Are you aware of these 'Passion' theatrical productions that are shown every Spring by some of your for-profit communication networks? The ones with the," he began to chuckle, "ridiculously unrealistic deaths of those three humans up on sticks? With the center one a disguised deity of some kind?"
Trunks' eyebrows flatline, "Yes Father, I am vaguely aware of the origin story of one of the largest religions on Earth whose universal symbol is a 'corpse on a stick'."
Bulma watched Vegeta make an exact replica of her son's face, before mentally correcting herself that it was the other way around.
"Pull up your pants. Your sarcasm is showing."
Bulma's mouth dropped, trying to figure out what comedian he could have heard that from. Trunks managed to keep his mouth shut, but his surprise showed in his eyes.
The corners of Vegeta's mouth twitch up briefly before returning to his normal scowl. "Mother… would say that to Father. She was the only person he ever allowed to talk back to him. But back on topic…"
He cleared his throat softly, "There's a conversation highlighted in the versions I've passingly glanced at, where the disguised god asks his travel companions who he is and only one gets it right. The god responds you are the rock I will build my religion on top of. That sentence epitomizes what 'trunks' means, not just for foundation but the stakes involved. That human was a 'Hail Mary' maneuver by that god, to use that mock-combat sport's metaphor. He was all or nothing. Everything depended on him.
"It's like the accidental arboreal pun with your language. Damage to the leaves, branches, even roots can all be recovered from. But damage to an arbor's 'trunk' is crippling or even fatal to the plant. It is the strongest part of the plant, evolved to survive everything. But it is simultaneously its greatest weakness. When harvesting the plant, evolved races never attacked the roots or the leaves. They construct a powerful enough blade— and then part it from the rest of the lifeform.
"'Trunks' was never a word used lightly. It was a symbol of power. But it also made you a target. One's greatest strength can always be turned into one's greatest weakness…"
Bulma watches his mouth twitch up again briefly.
"…A double-edged sword, as Earthlings say. It was often used in titles. Supreme General Nappa, if your mother ever mentioned him, the 'supreme' in our language was actually 'trunks'."
Vegeta takes a deep breath. "Now… I want you to repeat back to me what you think the word 'trunks' means before I get to the real reason I've told you all this."
"Wha-? Yes Sir!"
As Trunks gave his quick summery, Bulma's heart was in her stomach. "If I'm right… Do… I even want to be wrong?"
Vegeta closed his eyes after Trunks finished. Bulma watched him take a deep breath.
"It is hard to tell at that age. But there is a good chance this is my earliest memory…
"I was 3. It was my first trip off-world. It was Frieza's birthday and the leaders and heirs of the planets he had subjugated came to kowtow before him. I had a basic understanding of the universal tongue, very basic. And it led to me making quite an impression.
"We were introduced as King Vegeta and Crown Prince Vegeta." Vegeta smiled, "I was livid. Temper-tantrum from hell. Father tried to calm me saying 'crown prince' was how aliens say it but I was pointing and screaming saying '…'crown' did not mean 'trunks' a crown was what was on top of our heads! My name is Trunks Prince Vegeta!' Later in the party the other rulers began calling me Prince Trunks Vegeta after I killed someone— still don't know who and I don't care so don't snap at me with those weak human sentiments! — I thought they were fools for getting it backwards but at least they were saying it.
"It was reported in the intergalactic press that way as well, 'Prince Trunks Vegeta'. Father never corrected it. He even used it in his propaganda. I never bothered either after… everything. Why would I? It was true. I was the favored son destined to rule the galaxy. To become the first super Saiyan in 1,000 years and lay Frieza's corpse at my feet and use it as a foot stool as I sat on my new thrown. I was… Super Vegeta, and everyone would soon know it…"
Bulma watched Vegeta clinch his eyes and snarl. He was startling to lose the battle against his trembling.
"Get out."
"Father?"
Vegeta unfolded his arms and transformed, "I said 'Get OUT!'"
Bulma watched Vegeta chase Trunks down the hall blasting over his head screaming obscenities for a few moments before she stopped the recording.
"Computer, where is Vegeta?"
A 2-D display was projected of the space ship in the yard. She could tell from the flashes in the windows he was blasting the robots to bits.
"Computer, where is Future Trunks?"
The computer showed Trunks in his room. He was sitting on his bed with his shirt off dangling in his hands staring at the floor. It was obvious he was frozen.
Bulma stood up and walked to his room. "Trunks?" she knocked. When he did not answer, she let herself in.
"So, you saw everything?" he asked.
"Saw what?"
"When I was little, you would show me security footage of Father. I know you watch him like a goldfish."
"I wouldn't say tha…"
"Those were your own words Mother. You watched him 'like a goldfish in a bowl on your desk'."
Bulma felt guilty for a moment but pushed it aside. "I know you're not alright, Trunks? Do you want to talk about it?"
Trunks tilted his head away from her.
"Trunks listen to me. I carried you alone. I birthed you alone. I've raised you alone. You are named after your grandfather, who was given the middle name of his uncle, who shared it as a first name of a cousin, who were both named after his father. And so on. Don't let what he said bother you. You are a Brie-"
"Bother me?!" Trunks stood up. He had been crying. "That Father just admitted he's loved me since day one?" He points at the ground, "That I am his 'trunks'. That I am Everything to him?!" He turns and walks to the bathroom, "I need to get ready for the funeral." He slams the door.
Bulma felt a hand grab her arm. "Watch where your heads at, Woman."
Bulma snapped out of her memory and found herself inches from the wall at the top of the steps. She looks at the hand on her arm, then follows it up to her husband's concerned face.
Her husband… A man who gave up his pursuit of ruling the galaxy to live with her on such an insignificant, primitive, backwater world in his eyes. To raise their son, to help raise the children of the man he hated too. It was him trying to protect Gohan that got Babadi's attention after all…
Vegeta saw his absent-minded wife shake a thought from her head. "Thank you, Vegeta."
"Whatever," he said letting go and continuing to their bedroom.
Bulma sat on the bed as Vegeta undressed and threw all his clothes in the hamper. She saw how raw his skin really was for the first time. "God the laundry…" she thought thinking on how stained his pajamas would become. Vegeta had always slept in clothes of some type. A lifetime in full armor made his skin feel unnatural if there wasn't something between him and the sheets and blanket. Some things were just hard-wired into him.
But it had proven a strong insight into her husband's head. The way Vegeta dressed at night revealed how he was feeling. Full pajama suit he was insecure about something, undershirt and shorts he was completely relaxed.
The corners of her mouth turned up. Watching him sleep on the security monitors had been the beginning. Her husband really was a cat. When they met, she thought the only emotions he showed was anger and indifference. Always hiding away then swatting and hissing when cornered.
Then she learned his "language" and realized he had been trying to talk to her the whole time. He was no "lap kitty", but he had become "I'll-sit-on-the-couch-at-the-same-time-you-are-but-don't-pet-me kitty" almost instantly. Over the years, he had inched closer until he finally became the "I'll-lay-on-the-back-of-the-couch-behind-your head-and-purr-in-your-ear-but-don't-pet-me kitty" he was today.
Vegeta closed the bathroom door and Bulma heard the water start. She stood up from his side of the bed and laid her robe over one of the sitting chairs. She'll put it away in the morning. She then turned off the morning alarm and curled up in bed watching the clock. It was the weekend anyway.
It normally took Vegeta 14 minutes to shower after training, but before bed he always took extra time to scrub himself. He even used scented soap. She did not even ask him. He just came to bed one night smelling like Ireland instead of his normal cleanness. At first she thought he had changed brands permanently, but then noticed he only smelled like that after the bedtime shower. She confirmed it when a new bar of his old soap appeared alongside his scented soap after the original bar ran out.
Bulma continued to watch the minutes tick by thinking on how to handle her cat-like space Viking over the next few days. 15 minute mark. 20 minute mark. 30 minute mark. As 41 minutes clicked off on her clock she got out of bed. She went to the bathroom door and walked in without knocking.
Normally Vegeta would react, but he did not even flinch. Bulma knew instantly all he had done was stand under the twin rain heads. There was no smell of his soap or shampoo in the mist.
Bulma took a deep breath and let it out through her nose. She then slipped her underwear off and pulled her slip over her head. She opened the frameless glass door to their massive shower and walked in. She moved in front of her husband. He took a sharp breath, but otherwise did not acknowledge her.
After briefly looking him over, she grabbed her bath pouf and tried to lather up his soup. After failing several times, she grabbed the wand from the wall and rinsed it completely out. She then took her body wash and built up the foam.
Vegeta closed his eyes but otherwise did not react. "Is he really so far he doesn't care about smelling like flowers?" she thought as she softly dabs across his body.
Bulma carefully washed his neck and shoulders. She was surprised when she went to lift his right arm that he moved it himself gently following her lead. "He's being submissive…"
She gently held his hand and washed each finger before moving up his arm, repeating the process on his left.
As she began to trace the muscles on his chest, his body responded as it always did when she gently touched him like this. She looked down as it proudly demanded its due. Vegeta made a small grunt mixed with a whimper. She looked up and saw Vegeta had opened his eyes. They were dull.
Bulma smiled, then pushed the buttons to turn off the rain heads and turn on the wand. She added more soap to the pouf. Bulma looked him in the eyes as she rung it out. The generous suds dripped over his erection from tip back towards the base before she gently began cleaning his lower abs. After the whole thing is obscured, she takes the wand, adjusts its strength to a gentle setting, and began carefully rinsing the soup from the region. She moved the wand over, under, and between.
Vegeta closed his eyes and made his soft, thankful grunt.
Bulma then hung the wand up and turned the rain heads back on. She moved to the right and knelt to wash his leg. She then stood and circled to begin washing his back. Her pouf circled his shoulder blades before it moved up and down his spine. She then knelt to wash is butt and inner legs.
Vegeta grunted disapprovingly and jerked his right leg when she goes too high.
"Sorry," Bulma said softly and she lowered her hand. She went to move to his left, but before she could stand, Vegeta surprised her and rotated on his own.
After finishing, she stood, then pushed the button turning off the rain head that covered the back half of the shower. Vegeta tilted his head slightly questioning her. She grabbed his shampoo bottle. "Turn around," she ordered.
Vegeta understood and turned around and tilted his head back so the water poured over his hair but cut off at his face. Bulma gently pushed his shoulder and he moved forward so he was completely out of the water. Bulma poured a large glob of shampoo into her hand and began rubbing his scalp.
Saiyan hair had always driven her nuts, even back with Goku as children. It was oily and greasy to the point of being filled with wax. No amount of scrubbing got rid of it all and by the next day it had returned to what it was before. She was so glad Trunks had human hair. Poor Chi-Chi.
But with Vegeta, she had her own private guinea pig. It took 2 years of experiments, but she finally got him silky, clean human-like hair she could run her fingers through all day. In the end, nothing could remove the wax without being too caustic, so she added chemicals to treat the scalp itself so it made more human-style fluid that could be washed away with normal oily hair shampoo.
He knew he was being messed with, but unlike his clothes or trying to enforce Earth manners, all he said was "the shampoo smells different" then answered "whatever" on what he thought.
She remembered their first night when he was so confused on why her hands were always in his hair. "Why are you so obsessed with my hair? Do humans has a sex organ there or something?" before patting her head like an animal.
"Hmph. Strange Earth fetishes," Vegeta spoke suddenly.
Bulma realized she had been giggling out loud. She blushed then went back to lather, rinse, repeat.
Ultimately Bulma turned the water completely off, then guided him out of the shower. She threw a towel over her shoulders then took another and began padding him dry. There was a yellow tinge to the white towel when she finished.
After quickly drying herself, she guided him to their bed. He sank into the mattress lying on his side and was seemingly out like a light. Bulma was shocked. Vegeta never slept naked without her intervention. "Are you really that exhausted?"
Bulma went to her side and grabbed a new night slip, then slid gently into bed. After she placed the free sheet over him, she made sure to press her back fully into his.
Back when they first shared a bed he had jumped out from a dead sleep when she had laid her arm over him. In the ensuing argument, he had proclaimed warriors to not "spoon" and sleep back to back. She had tried to prove to Vegeta that was not how things worked on Earth, but when she actually researched it, she saw that soldiers actually did sleep back to back on the battlefield for safety reasons. After that, she stopped forcing the issue.
Bulma smiled to herself remembering the first time Vegeta rolled on his back. It was a year after they reconnected. She was so used to being back to back it actually startled her awake. She ended up watching him the rest of the night. His arms limp at his sides. His head slightly tilted back exposing his neck. No guard. No fear. She knew he had fully given himself to her that night. His soul had proclaimed "I love you" even if his lips never would. But right now, her husband needed comforted, so she pressed into him as much as she dared.
Bulma woke up a second time. Her body told her again something was not normal. Her blurred vision told her the clock said 5:1—something. She went to move and realized there was a pressure on her arm and legs. She looked down.
"An arm? Who's…?" her still sleeping brain thought and she ran her free hand over it. The familiar texture of her husband's flesh jolts her mind awake. Vegeta… was hugging her?
She looked herself over. Vegeta had his chest to her back, and was pressing her slightly painfully into him, one arm over the top of her arm, the other underneath just under her breasts. His legs were also intertwined and locking with hers. She felt his head deep into her hair as her ears became aware of the soft coughing-like noise he made when having a nightmare.
For the first time in their life together, he was genuinely spooning her in bed. No bugging her for sex or anything. He was completely lost in his dreams and hugging her like a teddy bear.
This was more than love when he rolled on his back or the comfort he sought pressing his back into hers. This was "I need your protection", "I need you to save me".
Bulma smiled and held his hand, trying not to think about the bruise forming on her arm or what she will be washing from her hair in the morning.
"I am the wife of the Saiyan prince," she thought. "I am his Foundation. The Rock this god has chosen to build his church on." Bulma slid her free hand onto her stomach. "I was going to wait until things quieted down more. But I think I'll tell your father about you over our wake-up coffee." She giggled, "After he swallows of course."