Writing group prompt was "adults doing a high school cliché" and… for some reason my trash brain went to fanfiction. You have been warned. :P

….

Across the Way

….

In the quiet hours of the night in the vast emptiness of the Capsule Corps. compound, two strangers remain awake. As Vegeta silences the humming of the gravity chamber and enters the cool night air, he spies the woman changing in her window. She sees him, and she either wants him to see or she doesn't care.

But it doesn't feel like an invitation or a challenge. And he should look away, probably, but she does this every night and he never does.

….

Bulma Briefs considered herself good at lots of things. Getting shit done. Applying lipstick while piloting a Capsulcopter. Quantum mechanics. But asking for help had never been in her wheelhouse.

And-dammit-she needed help. She'd let her employees take a long holiday weekend. They had families and plans and all sorts of things she didn't want to think too long and hard about, seeing as to how she had the sprawling compound to herself and no boyfriend to call over. But what she did have was a half-ton shell of a ship that was propped against the wall that she needed moved across the room. What she was also lacking was the muscle to carry a half-ton shell of a ship across the room.

Bulma chewed on her lip.

Well. There was someone still in the CC compound who could move a half-ton heap of metal with the sort of ease she used to flip her pillow to the cold side, but he was… grumpy. Arrogant. Not exactly accommodating. And, mostly, she didn't feel up to asking him for anything.

Mustering all the humility she could find in herself-which, admittedly, wasn't much-Bulma marched out the door of the lab and across the green grass of the compound. Cicadas sang the sound of summer in the trees. The few seconds of wet hot humidity made a bead of sweat roll down her spine. She crossed the yard to stand before the round spaceship her father had built for anything but a moody Space Prince to brood inside.

She spied through the window, toes flexed and neck strained, as the person she needed to ask for assistance flew effortlessly in the air. His skin slick under red lights. His impossibly tiny, lycra shorts hugging his bulging thighs.

For all his shortcomings-and he had plenty-she couldn't fault those muscles of his.

Shaking her head, blue hair going this way then that, Bulma cleared her thoughts. She'd spent enough time here, spying on the moody prince under the guise of research. Sometimes she'd come and eat her lunch, some days she'd have nothing to snack on apart from her own thumbnail, but now she… needed something.

And so, she moved from the window to knock defiantly on the door. Three, loud tap tap taps, and the prince froze inside and, if possible, got even moodier.

She exhaled, waiting for one of the two possible reactions he could have.

The first-and most likely-was to ignore her.

The second and most frightening (though, ashamedly, her favorite) was to fill with rage and barrage her with temper and insult and all sorts of other exciting things.

Unfortunately, he chose to ignore and Bulma knew she'd have to play dirty. Sticking her forehead against the round port window and locking eyes with the prince, she shouted,

"Help me with something or I'll turn this contraption off and you won't have anything to do until dad returns from East City."

She'd become somewhat good at reading him over the past few months. He was still mostly a mystery, but she could spot the telltale tensing of shoulders that meant he'd heard her.

And he was thinking.

She tried to bite back the smirk, but when he turned to face her-jaw tense and eyes narrowed-the smirk split to a smile.

"What?" he snapped.

She leaned back and waited for the door to unlatch.

"I need you to move something for me. Something heavy."

He grunted and marched passed her, and she watched his backside in those teensy shorts and shook her head. Tonight, she might give him a better show than usual.

She was feeling generous, after all.

...

That evening, Bulma stepped from the shower, a cloud of steam hovering around her calves as she twisted a fluffy white towel over her hair. She wrapped a second around herself and tucked a corner in her cleavage.

Then, an eager dance in her step, she moved toward her bedroom window and cast a glance across the yard.

The sun was set and the lights from the yard were switching on. Any second now, Vegeta would exit the spaceship and make his way into the main building. On his short trek to the CC compound, his dark eyes would flicker upwards, seeking her out.

And she'd oblige.

Ever since that day when she'd been wallowing in the sting of her fresh breakup, wondering who could pass on her brains and exceptional personality and the perfection that was her breasts. She'd pouted at her naked reflection in the window only to glance down and find Vegeta looking up.

And he'd been shocked, sure, but mostly his eyes gleamed with the sort of stoic appreciation that her sour mood craved.

The following day when the gravity chamber shut off, she took place in front of the mirror. Just when he was in view, she yanked her purple tanktop up over her head, giving the alien prince full view of her best bra. She shimmied out of her shorts and turned, trying her best to be seductive as she gave him an eye-full of round ass.

It was a good ass. She didn't need his approval, but the dark look in his eyes in the night did make her pride swell.

And the night after, he'd left and there'd she been. When the humming of the gravity chamber came to a halt and the night breeze cooled his sweat-soaked skin, he glanced up. He wasn't hoping to see anything, no. He was just… curious. Curious if the past few times had been a coincidence because the alternative-that the blue haired scientist who was so fond of stamping her feet at him and shouting and glaring and seeming wholly annoyed at having to share the same air as him was undressing in her window for his viewing pleasure was… well, it was something.

Vegeta stilled as the woman stepped in front of the window, the light of her bedroom illuminating her figure in the window for his viewing pleasure.

No… pleasure wasn't the right word. He didn't get any warped sense of pleasure from this exchange. But she glanced down and he knew she could seem him, and she either wanted him to see or she didn't care as she slid her pants down her creamy thighs, exposing the pair of red underwear that give just a peek of round ass cheek.

And she unclasped her matching bra made with a complex-looking eyelet material and lets it fall to the floor, but doesn't turn around. She stands for a moment before moving away, and then Vegeta continues toward the house to shower.

…

She's fixing the chamber since the bots are inadequate and crumple beneath the recent surge of his power.

Strange that she complains with barely a curse under her breath before she tossed some tools in a bag and marched out of her labs and out into the yard. It's hot, and he tried not to notice the way her damp tank top clung to her waist.

Because he'd spent enough time noticing and appreciating and… enjoying her curves in the late hours of the evening, he didn't need to go getting distracted by them in the middle of the day. So he turned, shucked his shirt, and started a slow routine of katas on the yeard.

And when he turned, he found Bulma staring openly at him.

Her pink mouth was open in a delicious 'o', her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide and holding a far-away look that made his ears burn.

She'd been staring at him.

He turned quickly, almost losing his footing. Vegeta hadn't thought much about his physique before, and silly notions like whether it was attractive. His body was weapon-honed by battle and forged by training and sparring and defeat. He'd never considered it any other way, but he was proud if nothing else, and the woman's open approval was something he'd thought about long after the gravity machine was fixed. He mulled over her stares a couple times while he was finishing up his strenuous regimen of pushups and as he shut down the machine and let the quiet settle over the yard.

And when he glanced up, already expecting to see the female half-dressed in the window, he knew… She wanted him to see.

When she turned, her underwear purple and entirely ridiculous (it should be ripped off, really), they locked eyes and stared.

And stared.

Vegeta's fists compressed at his side. His jaw was tight and he wondered if he should… go up?

And Bulma gave a half smile, the seduction clear on her features, and she turned and gave him another peek and he looks, but he doesn't go up.

It had been years since he'd gotten his dick wet. and Vegeta didn't make succumbing to his bodily needs a habit. He'd gone months without food, days without sleep. satiating his appetite was something he could ignore. He'd certainly be able to last a bit longer without the temptation of a woman, even one as enticing as Bulma.

...

Then one day Vegeta shut down the chamber and cracked his neck. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the tightness of over-worked muscles and opened the door. It smacked back into its frame with a resounding whack and he exhaled into the warm night air. The yard was quiet apart from the humming of insects and the moonlight lit the compound's grounds with white light. As he made the short trek toward the main compound, he inclined his neck and spotted the woman's bedroom window. Her light was on, her window open, but her figure wasn't visible in the light.

He froze. Frowned. And then realized that he was getting tripped up because a moody female wasn't undressing for him to spy on her, so he went inside and took a scorching hot shower to wash off his sweat and his shame.

Only… he was still a bit thrown off balance when he left the shower and rubbed his skin with the drying cloth. He pulled on a pair of shorts and blinked into the darkness of his barren sleeping room.

And before he was entirely conscious of what he was doing, he knocked on the woman's bedroom door.

There was a good bit of scrambling inside and then she appeared in the crack of her doorway looking him straight in the eye. Her blue eyes wide and a bit dazed.

"Vegeta," was all she said. And she gave an innocently timed blink. "Do you… need something?"

He stilled. What reason could he give for his entrance? Heat climbed his neck as he realized his own shame.

So instead, he glanced over her shoulder and stared at the scattering of electronic parts on her floor. A soldering gun lay on its side and complicated mess of gadgets he couldn't name formed a messy crescent the carpet.

"Oh," Bulma said, turning to where his attention had gone. "I had this idea for tweaking my clock radio so that…" Her voice trailed and, as she got it, her cheeks bloomed pink. "Did I forget about our arrangement? My clock was torn apart so I didn't notice the time…"

He grunted and moved his attention away from the mess of electronics. And when he couldn't avoid it any longer, his eyes snapped to Bulma and he found a challenging smile tugging at her lips.

"Vegeta," she spoke. "Do you want to have sex?"

He froze, feet leaden to the floor as though the gravity had spiked to 200 times that of Earth's normal gravity, only it had no apparent effect on Bulma because she tilted her head to one side and her teasing grin blossomed into something far more enticing.

"Is that why you're here?"

"I…" But he wasn't sure what he'd meant to say because her hands were on the hem of her shirt and she was tugging the thing over her head. For the first time, he was treated to a sight he'd only seen through her bedroom window.

And then she was standing there in loose sleep shorts and a black bra. Without another word, Bulma's hands were behind her back; she struggled with the catch for a moment before it hooked. The contraption slid down her shoulders, catching at her elbows, before unceremoniously falling to the floor.

He stared at her topless figure unsure of how he was supposed to react. For a moment he contemplated backing away, shutting the door on this entire ordeal and go back to only thinking about Bulma from the safety of the opposite side of her window.

"What about now?" she asked.

"What about now?" he replied.

She rolled her eyes playfully, smile still in place. "Do you want to have sex now?"

Bulma expected him to be hesitant. She'd been open to the possibility of rejection. Vegeta was a reserved guy. Maybe all Saiyans were as helpless in bed as Goku. But she wasn't prepared for the look of unadulterated stare of confusion at her bare chest.

She bit her lower lip. How was it possible to know what she was doing, but not able to stop? Did she want to stop? She wasn't sure yet. So, resisting the urge to cover he chest, she planted her hands on her hips and quirked a challenging brow.

"Well?"

"Yes."

And she couldn't help that it made her grin, but the single grunted word from the prince's mouth-a gruff, mostly unhappy surrender was all it took. It made her skin prickle with anticipation as she reached a greedy hand out and felt what before she'd only seen. And, yeah, maybe fantasized a little about.

His skin was warm. She'd run his vitals before and knew Saiyan temperatures ran hotter than a human could survive, but it was still thrilling to have strong, warm skin beneath her hand. She ran her palm up his bicep and over one impossibly large shoulder.

Everything about him was firm and solid. His hands slipped around her waist and held her close, and she was made aware of exactly how firm and solid he was.

Unsure of what else she could do, she grinned at him.

And when she kissed him she knew-there was no turning back.