Author's Note: Don't know why. Didn't need to. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ. Or thunderstorms. If I did, they'd be extinct.
Thunderstorms
Thunder grumbled overhead, breaking the silence of the night and also grating on the very last vestiges of what could be called the nerves of a certain Saiyan Prince who was trying to sleep. Cursed Earth planet with its cursed abnormal weather and cursed Earthlings inhabiting it. Especially Kakarrot. Curse him ten times more than the others.
Vegeta rolled over and stuffed his head under his pillow, not an easy task considering his crown of spiky Saiyan hair. It did little to muffle the heavenly mutters and a lot to enhance his already sour mood.
One more sleepless night. The night before he'd been kept up by that cursed woman's cackling laughter, the night before by frequent explosions coming from the lab. Did the humans in this compound ever sleep? Vegeta needed his Princely beauty sleep. One more night kept awake like this, and he just might snap and kill everyone.
Actually…that didn't sound too bad. Maybe then he could actually get some-
A streak of blue-white lightning illuminated the sky through the window, and a shriek suddenly pierced the night, much louder and more annoying than the following rumbling peals of thunder. Vegeta sat up in his bed, pillow falling to the ground, knowing all to well whose cry that was. He just hoped to Kami that she didn't-
"Vegetaaaaaaa!"
Cuuuuuuuurse it.
Vegeta reluctantly dragged himself out of bed and lurched to the door. He opened it and poked his head out to find a very bedraggled Bulma standing in the hallway, a loose t-shirt barely covering her feminine form. He wasn't too concerned with that, however (Okay, well, maybe a little), as she was obviously in some sort of distress, a light sheen of sweat covering her face and shoulders, her body trembling slightly, and her eyes widened with fear.
"What on Earth is wrong with you, woman?" Vegeta growled, glaring at the blue-haired beauty cowering before him. He'd never seen her this frightened, even during his angry tirades and outbursts. Hell, she gave him every insult back tenfold, then refused to feed him afterward. A crippling combination, and quite a dirty one. Damned effective, though.
"Nothing's wrong!" Bulma snapped, quickly hiding her fear under a mask of anger and glaring back at Vegeta, hands planted on her hips. "I…I just wanted to ask you something!"
"Really?" Vegeta raised a skeptical brow. "At three in the morning?"
"…Yes." Bulma stared at him blankly. Vegeta stared back, waiting. "I-"
KRA-KOW!!
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeek!"
Bulma gave yet another ear-piercing shriek and leapt a full two feet in the air, scrambling in terrified desperation and clutching the thing closest to her for support. That thing just happened to be Vegeta, who didn't know whether to be mildly or exceedingly annoyed. He decided to go with mildly annoyed with a side of grudging indifference. And just a tiny bit of attraction. But mostly the annoyance and indifference thing.
"As I said before," Vegeta drawled, "what on Earth is wrong with you, woman?"
"I…I'm scared!!" Bulma burst out, cowering against Vegeta's solid form and shaking. "I'm really, really scared right now!" Vegeta frowned.
"…What?" Bulma didn't get scared, not even the one time when he picked her up and threw her in the pool after she called him a pygmy. She had just climbed right back out, soaking wet, and the next day his gravity room was on the fritz, his normal training gravity a full ten times its normal setting. He still remembered barely being able to crawl his way to freedom, and when he'd finally reached it, Bulma had been there with a bucket of cold water and gloating laughter.
Bulma was fearless. What could have upset her in such a way?
"I just…I just can't stand thunderstorms, okay?!" Bulma continued to babble, still retaining a surprisingly strong grip around the Saiyan Prince's neck. "I've hated them since I was a kid. They're loud and scary and the lightning and I can't ever fall asleep-" Bulma suddenly broke off rambling and stared at him, eyes wide. "Let me sleep with you."
"Hell no!" Vegeta shoved her off him with such force she bounced twice before coming to a stop.
"Ow! What the hell?!" Bulma glared up at him and rubbed her smarting rear. "Do you have any idea what men would do to have me say that to them?!"
"Exist?" Vegeta sneered.
"Why you-!!" Bulma leapt to her feet in fury. "Are you insinuating that I'm a easy?!"
"There's no insinuating, honey. You are."
"Oh! Oh, you-! You JERK!" Bulma stomped her foot like a child, cheeks flushed angrily. "You…you WISH you could have some of this, don't you?!" She gestured at her body as Vegeta's brow climbed even higher. "Well guess what? Nu-uh, you're not getting any! What do you have to say about THAT?"
"…Thank you?"
"You mother-fu-"
KRA-KOOOOOW!
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Bulma performed another banshee-scream-jump combination and flung herself at the Saiyan Prince. This time he was ready for it and gave her an even fiercer shove, making her bounce three full times before settling.
"Stop doing that!" Bulma shrieked.
"You stop doing that!" Vegeta barked back.
"Pity me, you asshole!" Bulma staggered back to her feet, wondering if her rear would ever be the same. "I'm a delicate woman! You're supposed to feel sorry for me, want to protect me from harm like a man!"
"I'm not a man, I'm a Sai-"
"I KNOW!!" Bulma exploded. "But if you could just-"
"Count."
"What?"
"Count," Vegeta repeated matter-of-factly, returning her confused gaze. "I heard if you count the seconds after lightning appears till the thunder sounds, you can calculate how far away the lighting struck. Do that."
"What…do…COUNT?!" Bulma sputtered, completely at a loss. "You want me to count the lightning? How the hell is that gonna help me?! It's just calculations!"
"So? Don't calculations comfort you?"
Bulma opened her mouth, ready to release a fresh deluge of insults, but stopped. Vegeta was right. Calculations always did make her feel better. Numbers were her friend, helped take her mind off things. Maybe even help her get over her fear of thunder and lightning.
"O…oh…well…" Bulma suddenly became bashful, gazing down at her bare feet while she shuffled them about. "I…I guess that would work." She looked up at Vegeta, a rare serious look on her face. "Thank you."
"Whatever," Vegeta snorted. "Just go get your beauty sleep. You need it."
"You son of a-!!"
Bulma slapped his face, yanked him close, gave him a searing kiss, then twirled on her heel, stormed into her room, and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Good night!" She barked just as it shut with a bang.
Vegeta stared at the closed door for several quiet moments, wondering what the hell had just happened. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it, then departed for his sleeping quarters after one last glance at Bulma's door. His mind still churned with unanswered questions as he flopped back into bed, but there was one thing he was completely sure of.
The women on this planet were fucking crazy.
The End
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.
Author's Note: Still don't know why I wrote this. Guess I just like the pairing for some reason. Also, thunderstorms are scary. And evil.
