Pairing: ZarbonxRaditz
Word Count: 2,549
Notes: AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in connection with Dragonball Z, nor do I make any money writing this fanfiction.
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Façade
When the alarm started to go off it almost caused Bulma to jump right out of her skin. But she didn't. All she did was just jump in fright, shriek in surprise and for a moment her mind was hazed with panic. It cleared quickly and, with her heart still pounding heavily within her chest all the way up to her throat and then her head, she scanned the control panel, trying to find where it was coming from. There was nothing wrong with the mechanics of the spacecraft, which provided some relief for Bulma in knowing her life wasn't in immediate danger.
Then, within the space of a few seconds of the alarm going off, she found what it was and her stomach clenched. It was the intruder alarm. Her hands were shaking and at first she wasn't able to push the correct buttons hard enough. Once she somehow managed to pull herself together enough to do the button pushing correctly, a flat screen slid out from the control panel. The image it displayed was dark and not terribly clear, but she could still make out the shape of a spacecraft, smaller than hers, which had landed over one of the emergency hatches, put in should any necessary repairs need to be made to the outside. The occupants of the spacecraft going through the hatch was, Bulma knew, what triggered the alarm.
Clutching the edge of the control panel to steady herself, Bulma looked over her shoulder and, despite her panic, managed to glare at the other non-intruder occupant of the spacecraft. He remained sitting, not doing anything, and was titled to the side to look round her at the screen.
"Why don't you go and do what I'm paying you for?" she demanded. "That's the intruder alarm." She jabbed a finger at the screen. "Look!"
"I see it," Zarbon said, far too casually for Bulma's taste. "Looks like it's just a Saiyan lot."
"Just?! They're prolific space pirates!"
"So they say." Zarbon shrugged. "Nothing for me, though."
"Then go and give your ego a polish. Not that you need it."
One of Zarbon's green eyebrows arched and he looked sarcastically amused. "A please wouldn't go amiss."
Bulma gritted her teeth. "Please go and polish your ego."
"If you insist." Zarbon stood and strode quickly towards the door, casually batting his braid from where it draped over his shoulder to hang down his back. "Lock the door behind me and stay here. Don't open it again until I'm back."
"You'll be lucky." As the door shut and various locking mechanisms clicked into place, Bulma huffed with immense frustration. Why were the pretty ones always such horrible bastards?
xxx
Zarbon had decided to wait until after he completed the job in full before deciding on whether or not the bodyguard trick would be one he tried again. Even so, he was already suspecting he would be sitting down and thinking of another plan he may be able to try. From the very moment they left for the northern galactic summit, he had been horrifically bored. He suspected the only reason he hadn't just fallen down and died from being so bored was because he managed to keep mentally repeating himself that there would be a lot of money coming to him once he was all over. If he was lucky, while the summit was going on he would be able to find somebody with a pack of cards and a lot of money in their pocket to keep himself amused.
When the alarm went off, Zarbon felt himself perk up, but that was because he had been on the verge of dozing off and it was so loud it felt as though it was shredding his eardrums. Watching Bulma and her inability to push a some buttons for a few seconds had been somewhat amusing but then he had managed to recognise the rather blurry image on the screen as a Saiyan spaceship and felt boredom pile itself heavily upon his shoulders once again.
The Saiyans lived up to the expectations Zarbon had of them. One hit and they were down. After two of them, Zarbon let the third actually try and hit him, only to be sourly disappointed. Not that he wanted to be struck by a Saiyan. Zarbon just thought that a race who boasted so much about their battle skills might have a bit of a better reaction time than that. In total there were five of them and, after knocking the consciousness out of all of them, Zarbon piled them underneath the emergency hatch they gained access through. Zarbon's plan was to wait until they landed on the planet where the summit took place and let the authorities take it from there. Under normal circumstances, he would just kill them, but that would draw too much attention to him in his current position, which he didn't want. So until they landed, he went to double check the spacecraft to make sure he hadn't missed anything, (which he highly doubted). After that, he would go back to Bulma, inform her the intruders had been taken care of and demand she turn the damn alarm off. Then he would just take up guard duty by the Saiyans. While being just as boring, it would at least be quiet.
Never ever would Zarbon admit, (even to himself), that he had been a very tiny bit surprised when he turned a corner past the shower room, (he was timed when he was in there - then again they did have a limited water supply for it), and felt something heavy slam into his back. He whirled around, striking his arm out and managed to dig it into the neck of his attacker. The movement of his arm didn't stop until he had the Saiyan, (he assumed it was a Saiyan - they didn't really work with any other race), pressed up against the wall. Then Zarbon was able to get a good look at him.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded. For the first time in his life Zarbon wasn't sure whether he should loosen the pressure upon a victim's neck or increase it.
Raditz coughed when Zarbon decided to increase the pressure on his neck just a little. "Same thing you are."
"I doubt very much you were also hired as a bodyguard to accompany the heir of a large Earth corporation to the northern galactic summit and back," Zarbon said.
Raditz's upper lip twitched. "Oh, don't tell me you've suddenly decided to go along the straight and narrow. It's not your style. Then again," he tilted his head, "that's it. This is a scam you've come up with, isn't it?"
Zarbon shook his head and looked furious. "No."
"Once this heir is at the summit you're going to take this ship and everything on it."
"No, I'm seeing the job through to the end." Then Zarbon leaned towards Raditz and when his lips were half an inch away from the Saiyan's ear, he hissed; "there wouldn't be any point in doing that anyway. She hasn't got anything around here really worth taking. I've already checked."
"You are up to something."
Raditz kept his voice down and Zarbon decided it would cause himself a lot les stress to just be thankful for small mercies.
"I'm going to take you back to where you came in," he told Raditz, still with his mouth close to his ear, still keeping his voice low. "Take your comrades and just keep away. When I come back you'll know what I'm doing. Just amuse yourself with something different until then. And, as a little note, robbing other ships on their way to and from the summit does not count as something different."
Raditz rolled his eyes. "You're no fun."
xxx
Raditz remained reluctant as he loaded his companions into the Saiyan spacecraft, taking all the opportunities he could to glare at Zarbon and mutter about how he could at least be bothered to help a bit. But each time Zarbon insisted that he couldn't be seen fraternising with the enemy. Bad for business.
Zarbon had, however, made sure the emergency hatch was closed properly behind Raditz. It would be even worse for business if the spacecraft was turned inside out and he died in a way which, while very brief, would be extremely unpleasant. He listened to the sound of the Saiyan spacecraft lifting off Bulma's before finding one of the many intercoms scattered around the spacecraft, all of which were linked back to the control room.
"They're gone now," he spoke into the intercom after pressing the one button upon it, "turn that stupid alarm off."
"Its not stupid, its lifesaving," Bulma insisted from the other end. Zarbon didn't know if she had a visual on him, (he certainly didn't from where he was), but curled his lips and rolled his eyes all the same. An annoyed "I saw that" coming through the intercom revealed that, yes, she did have a visual. On the bright side, the alarm suddenly stopped to leave a soft ringing in Zarbon's ears, which he had expected after having them torn into by the loud noise. Then Bulma went on to say; "what did you let them go for? They should have been taken in by the authorities."
"Sorry," Zarbon said, being careful to sound as un-sorry as he possibly could. "I didn't know you wanted to keep them on board."
There was a pause before Bulma replied with; "okay, fair enough."
xxx
There hadn't been anybody at the summit with a pack of cards and a lot of money in their pocket. There had, however, been many with just a lot of money in their pockets, so Zarbon allowed himself some nostalgia in seeing to it that his pick-pocketing skills had not diminished. Indeed, they hadn't. Zarbon also found somebody with just a pack of cards, another horrifically bored bodyguard for hire as it happened. So they managed to pass some time together, playing various friendly games and swapping stories of different clients they had worked for. During that time, Zarbon also found that he was still an absolutely terrific liar.
At very long last the bodyguard job was over and Zarbon was happy to take his pay and go. He still had all of Bulma's post-summit chatter ringing in his ears as he did. They were both glad to part company and neither made too much effort to conceal that. So glad, Zarbon almost turned and left completely but was somehow able to convince himself to see things through. At least when he came back it would be dark and, as long as Bulma didn't talk in her sleep, things would be fine.
xxx
Bulma didn't talk in her sleep and things were absolutely fine. And the container capsule invention Zarbon found made things so easy he wondered why he had never come across them before. He could steal absolute fortunes with these things. No wonder the Briefs family were stupidly rich with a founding invention like that. At least, Zarbon assumed Capsule Corporation's founding invention had been the containment capsule, hence the company name.
He didn't spend more than half a second pondering on it. Because he didn't care.
The containment capsules also meant he could just drop them away in a drawer when he got back, shoving them right to the very back and bottom just to make sure, before allowing himself to collapse. When on a job, (or so he called it), he never got as much sleep as he would normally like to. That was probably why, he supposed, he slept for a long time whenever he got back.
Zarbon still hadn't had enough sleep when he was woken up by something being repeatedly smacked against his shoulder. As he flexed his shoulders and clenched his fingers, (seemed he was clutching a pillow), he was able to realise something that gentle couldn't be any sort of authority which had managed to catch up with him. Zarbon had absolutely no idea what it felt like to get caught, but he'd heard enough anecdotes from unfortunate others to know it was probably rougher than this.
Whatever it was smacking at his shoulder began to poke the side of his head. "Hey," said a very familiar voice. "The hell are you still sleeping for?"
"It's beauty sleep, Saiyan," Zarbon grumbled. "And you, of all beings, should be appreciating it. And not interrupt it."
"You probably won't mind when you see what I've got."
"While I'm sleeping I really don't care what you have."
"And if I told you that you've now got a bounty?"
Zarbon's eyes opened, his interest successfully perked, and sat up. "About time."
Raditz held up a piece of paper and Zarbon took it. The first thing he noted was the very much smaller piece of paper attached at the top, near the right corner. Upon it was printed; YOUR BOYFRIEND GOT A BOUNTY
"Nappa sent this over, didn't he?" said Zarbon. "Somehow he became aware that word is an irritation."
"What? Boyfriend? You'd prefer manfriend?"
Zarbon didn't have to consider it for very long. "A fair enough point." He studied the wanted poster. There wasn't any ominous DEAD OR ALIVE text, which was oddly disappointing, but at least they had managed to pull up a half decent image of him. That was the great thing about every side being his good one as far as anything photogenic went. Then he looked down at the reward being offered to whoever managed to drag him in.
"Only four zeroes? I got woken up for that?"
"It's not that bad for a beginning bounty. What sort've heir did you rob anyway?"
"From some big rich family on Earth. They own this huge technological company."
Raditz snorted. "That's an extremely generous beginning bounty then. Earth technology is still really far behind. It's shit."
Clearly Raditz still had to be introduced to the capsules.
"You're just jealous because I got there first. And I saved your asses from getting caught as well. You know she wanted to keep you on board to hand you over to the authorities?"
Raditz looked neither impressed nor grateful, but Zarbon hadn't been expecting as much. "It's not as though they'd be able to hold me anyway."
"That's another one of the problems with you, Saiyan. I'm too used to you now. It would be too quiet and I'd get bored."
One of Raditz's eyebrows rose. "Is this an offer to come and break me out?"
The wanted poster was put aside, slipping out of Zarbon's fingers as though he wasn't noticing he was dropping it. "I never said anything like that."
Zarbon leaned back. Partly because he was still tired but mostly because Raditz was leaning against his chest.
"More what you didn't say, really."
"Don't use my arguments against me." Zarbon lay completely onto his back again, dragging Raditz down with him as he went.
"Oi." Raditz's tail swung in the air. "I need to train."
"When I've finished sleeping," Zarbon closed his eyes, "you can."
Raditz growled softly but was otherwise very agreeable. It was strange from a Saiyan, but Zarbon was asleep before he could start wondering about it.
END