Bulma's awoken by a loud banging on her door. She looks at the time. It's not really that late. 11pm. She only went to bed an hour earlier, but she's groggy from having hardly hit her REM cycle. She rubs the sleep from her eyes when she hears the banging again. She can't settle on whether she's feeling more sleepy or annoyed, so she wraps both about herself like a robe as she gets up. She takes the baseball bat she keeps under her bed and heads downstairs to the front door, peering through the peephole and spots two men — one familiar — standing on her doorstep.
She opens the front door and glares at them unhappily. "What the hell, Goku?"
"Hey Bulma! This is my friend, Vegeta." Goku gestures at the shorter grumpy man with forced joviality. He's trying to steam-roll over the fact that he's woken her in the middle of the night, but she's not buying it. Neither is his friend, who only scowls harder, apparently displeased with the term 'friend'. Goku continues nevertheless. "He uh... needs a place to stay."
Bulma glances at Vegeta who looks like he just broke out of prison, then back at Goku. She can't believe what she's hearing. "He's your friend, he can stay with you!" she whisper-yells, partly so as not to wake the neighbors, but partly because it feels rude to turn someone away in a loud voice.
Vegeta huffs, turns on his heels, and starts walking back towards Goku's beat-up sedan.
With the edges of his cheery-disposition crumbling into panic, Goku rubs the back of his neck and gives Bulma an imploring look. "Please, Bulma. You know he can't stay with me; we don't have the room and Chi Chi won't have him."
"Well I won't have him either. Why would I allow a strange man into my home?!"
Goku presses his hands together to beg. He can put his fist through 20 cinderblocks. Really, she's seen him do it. Accruing black belts in every martial arts known to man is something of a hobby for him. Which is why Bulma now feels her ego being stroked as he supplicates before her. . "Pleeeease, Bulma, I'll really owe you one. He's not a bad guy, I promise."
"What's his deal?" she asks, despite knowing it sounds like she might be changing her mind. She can't help it, she's curious.
Goku leans in to dish the dirt. "His place is a crime scene. He's got no money and nowhere to go."
"A crime scene?" she whisper-screeches. "You're joking, right?"
Goku's expression turns serious. There's always something unsettling about Goku looking serious. He's so easy-going, so happy-go-lucky. Seeing him serious feels universally wrong. "Bulma, he's the victim. He only just got out of hospital. They nearly killed him."
"They?"
"Oh, don't worry, they're dead. Hence the crime scene."
This does not make her feel better. Yet despite herself, she feels a seed of sympathy start to blossom. Homeless, injured, no where to turn, a mysterious past… Vegeta is painting a sad and intriguing picture. Which was probably Goku's angle all along. He knows how much she likes to take in hopeless cases. Just look at Yamcha.
"We both know you have plenty of room," he adds.
She thins her mouth. Her home has more than enough room for a guest, several even, but that doesn't mean she's obligated.
There's a loud blare from where Vegeta leans in the car window to honk the horn, impatient for Goku. It's clear he's already discredited her charity.
"Nice guy," she drawls.
"Cut him some slack, his family is dead. His home is a crime scene. The people that tried to kill him took everything he has. He really has nothing."
It's the final nail in the coffin of her resistance. She feels her shoulders sag before she's even mentally conceded. "Goku, I swear, you are going to spend the rest of your friggin' life making this up to me."
He darts in to give her a big hug. "Thank you!"
She grumbles because she doesn't want to let on how nice his hugs are.
He lets her go and turns and waves his hand, back and forth as if summoning a jet plane to land like the giant goofball that he is. The grumpy stranger very reluctantly peels himself off from the car and lumbers back towards them— and walks right past her into her house without so much as a hello or thank you.
Bulma's mouth hangs open with horror before she gives Goku an incredulous look, but he's already jogging towards the car before she can change her mind, waving farewell. "I'll come check on you guys soon! Thanks again, Bulma!"
Bulma doesn't wait to watch him drive off because there's a STRANGE MAN somewhere in her house and she wants to put him where he can cause the least damage, then spend the rest of her night dreaming up ways to kill her childhood friend for putting her in this position in the first place.
~xox~
AN: A bit of an 'ode' to "Playing to Win" by springandbysummerfall. I was intrigued by her use of present tense. Felt compelled to try it myself as a bit of a writing exercise. Gotta love human AUs. Makes me think of Girl Next Door and On Set ^_^