Had to try hard to keep close to the 100 word limit; it was hard. Some mild swearing, non-graphic male nudity. This is a derivative work from my unfinished A/U called South of Santa Fe. I swear, someday I will finish it! This and the unfinished fic are based off the Brooks and Dunn song South of Santa Fe. If you like country music check out the music video; it's like a mini movie. It's one of my favorites. I have two other western A/Us stewing in the back of my mind. Please do leave comments and kudos if you like. Not beta-ed, but I did do some editing before posting.
**One quick question, before the fic: Would you prefer the non-human DBZ characters retain their non-human forms, or would you rather they be turned fully human?**
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1 Instability
Back on the east coast, in her safe, cozy home, she never gave thought to the hardship of instability. The most pressing thing on her mind had been how best to turn down the boys that came calling. They annoyed her, with their gifts to her mother, their platitudes to her father and promises of love, comfort and security. They all seemed as dull as she thought her life had once been, where the most exciting thing was tending to the ill and injured with her father Dr. Brief.
Then the butcher's son, the baseball player Yamcha, proposed. She panicked. She fled, in the middle of the night. An early morning train took her west, where she might find meaning and excitement.
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2 Chaos
In the chaos of cracking bullets, screaming women and acrid gun smoke he lost track of his target.
"Where the hell did you go, Jeice, you sorry son of bitch!" he grumbled as he shoved bullets into the Colt's chamber.
Vegeta crouched behind a wagon in the dusty livery stable yard in Nugget, New Mexico. He needed to take out that shaggy-haired cur so he could make a run for his horse and ride like hell out of here before the rest of Freeza's men came after him.
He edged past wagon box, to caution a glance, hoping the fool would show himself.
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3 Darkness
By now Jeice was sure to be packed away in a pine box, waiting to be planted by Nugget's undertaker, Vegeta thought as he rode on in the cover of darkness.
The full moon washed the desert in silver-white. Crickets chirped. In the distance coyotes howled as saddle leather creaked in time with Turnip's hooves.
So much peace surrounded him it was enough to make him sick. Vegeta grimaced as another jolt of pain shot through his shoulder. He had to keep riding. He needed to ignore the nausea and he needed to find a place to hole up. Somewhere back there they were on his trail.
He nudged Turnip with his heels, urging him to pick up speed.
"No rest tonight, Turnip."
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4 Lavender
He swayed drunkenly, reins long fallen from his grasp, as the dun plodded on, driven by the scent of distant water. Red soaked his heavy black duster. Sanguine rivulets trailed down his arm, his pant leg and off the toe of his moccasins to the sand below.
His eyes drooped, mouth dry as all the arroyos he had passed in the night.
When in the back of his mind, he heard, "don't stop."
"I'll stop if damn well please," He answered aloud, in a delirious slur.
He dropped in a broken heap upon a wooded boardwalk, thud loud enough to wake the dead. The creak of a door opening pulled his gaze up, and there she stood, his blue-haired angel.
He closed his eyes, and welcomed death.
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5 Time
"He'll live. All he needs now is rest and time to heal."
"Thank you, doctor."
The doctor packed away his things, pulled out a note pad, scribbled.
"My bill." He pulled a bottle from his bag and set it on the night stand. "And this, I'm sure he'll want this when he wakes."
A nod and he set of into the early morning light.
Bulma grabbed the bottle, its contents sloshed as she mouthed the words, "Whiskey."
As her eyes turned to the dark stranger in the bed, in her fear churned. Fear for who he was, fear for whether he'd survive the infected wound in his shoulder and fear of when he'd wake.
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6 Paradox
It took living in true hardship for her to fully appreciate what ease she had at home, in that big Eastern city. It was a paradox.
Bulma spent the morning scrubbing the caked blood out of the stranger's dusty black coat and pants. She tried to wipe as much blood off of the deer-hide moccasins as best she could, not wanting to ruin them.
She set the now dry clothing on the dressing table. What was also a paradox was how peaceful he looked, as he slept, when obviously he was not. She knew this stranger was dangerous, from the guns he carried to the wound he wore.
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7 Hope
Deep within, he held out hope that he could finally be free from Freeza. He regret leaving his mountain home. He vowed, some day to return, but he wasn't sure if he'd fit in anymore with his own people. He knew he never fit in with Freeza's.
His head pounded. His dry lips stung and damn his shoulder throbbed with an unholy pain.
Holy hell, he was alive!
The world spun as he shifted, sheets falling to his bare hips. He fought back the nausea. At the foot of his bed she leaned on folded arms, wearing a halo of blue hair. There she was, his angel.
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8 Sole Survivor
The west was a hard place for a lone woman. When she had come here she was still full of child-like wonder. At 20 she was now hardened to reality of the West. Simple good and hard drawn bad did not exist. The west was shades of gray, or rather sepia.
She worked hard to craft an honest reputation in Goldwater, but at the cost of honesty. Most everyone in town thought her young husband had died in the war between the States and that her first child and parents had perished on the wagon ride to her new home; she the sole survivor of her family.
She wasn't sleeping when he woke, just lost in thought. How would she explain this stranger while preserving her integrity as an honest woman, in this town?
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9 Determination
Shoulder wound throbbing and empty stomach protesting Vegeta pushed out of bed with a determined grunt. He stood on wobbly legs, like a new born deer.
Bulma sat up, eyes wide as saucers.
"Where the hell is my horse," he grumbled as he took a cautious step, "-the hell are my guns?"
He swayed. Suddenly up was down and down was up and he plopped, hard onto his rear. Oriental rug slipped out and the bed served as his savior, keeping him from falling completely flat on the floor of the unfamiliar dark room.
"You've been shot, and you lost a lot of blood."
She stood over him, face set hard as stone, emotions trained, guarded.
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10 Perseverance
Bulma turned her eyes from the lean, dark stranger, lest they wander south.
"You are badly wounded." A blush tinged her cheeks, her brows knit, "and you are currently nude. So, please, do get back into bed!"
Vegeta looked down at himself, and growled out, more coherent this time, "Where the hell are my clothes!?"
She drew a deep breath, trained her vison upon the rumpled quilt, grabbed it. He snatched it from her before she could set it at his feet. Their eyes met; her eyes, as blue Summer sky, and his as dark as a moonless night. Fates enter twined. Lives knit together, as gazes locked.
Perseverance is how she survived this long in this unkind part of the world. Perseverance would get her through this episode in her no longer dull life.