Poor Yamcha has to put up with so much bullshit why do I do this to him? (Oh yeah it's because I enjoy his suffering that's right)
Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoy it! I'm always interested in feedback if you have any!
For the most part, being a bodyguard wasn't too difficult. Yamcha couldn't bench press a planet like Goku, but compared to the average human he was still pretty tough. Add Puar's shapeshifting abilities to the mix, and they were a team not to be reckoned with.
Of course, there were always going to be a few idiots who actually tried reckoning with them.
"That's the third kidnapping attempt tonight," Puar sighed. "This is starting to get ridiculous."
Yamcha agreed, though he felt "starting" was an understatement. They'd only been on this particular job for a few hours and their client, one Miss Tracy Dickson, had been attacked twice, nearly kidnapped three times, and received countless death threats. When they asked her why so many people wanted her dead, or at least "gone" as one note had said, she just shrugged and said "I've uncovered something big, but I can't talk about it. I just need you to keep me here and alive while I figure a few things out." So far, all they knew about her was that she was a private detective with a knack for solving mysteries but who couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag. "That's where you come in, sweetie," she'd said when she first hired them.
Tracy seemed completely unconcerned at the fact that she'd almost been kidnapped again and was scouring some document or other at her desk, ignoring everything around her. Not much seemed to phase her, not even the fact that one of her bodyguards was a flying, talking, shapeshifting cat, although Yamcha supposed that was the least weird thing in his life at the moment anyway. Yamcha sent Puar out to check the office building's perimeter again while he secured the room's exits.
He was looking out the window so he could let Puar back in when she came up when Tracy let out a shriek. Yamcha whirled, instinctively dropping into a fighting stance, but she had shot up out of her chair and was clutching a paper with both hands, staring at it. He did a quick scan of the room just to be sure, let Puar in since she was tapping the window glass, and cleared his throat. "Miss Dickson?"
She spun to face him, still clutching the paper. "Yamcha, I need to get to the police department right away."
Yamcha glanced at Puar, who shrugged. He took a little comfort in the fact that she was just as in the dark as him. "Well, I don't exactly have a car."
Tracy was stuffing papers in a briefcase. "That's fine, we'll walk. You just keep me from dying or being kidnapped on the way, got it?"
This whole thing was starting to sound tedious. Walking the streets of West City at night was dangerous enough if you weren't being sent death threats. He turned to Puar. "Puar, can you become a magic carpet again?"
She shrugged. "Sure. Better than walking the whole way there." With a backflip and a puff of air, a blue rug with Puar's face was floating just off the ground.
Yamcha helped Tracy onto carpet-Puar, then they took off out the office door, swooshed down the stairwell, and were halfway down the street in a minute flat. There were gunshots coming at them from down the street, and Yamcha spotted a man firing at them from an alleyway, taking him out with a quick Kamehameha. "Puar, take us as high as you can," he called.
"Right! Hold on, Miss Dickson!" Yamcha grabbed the edge of the carpet, and Tracy grabbed Yamcha, and Yamcha really hoped no one he knew would see them as Puar rocketed upwards.
Yamcha felt like he was in a car chase from some kind of bad action film. Puar swerved through the air to avoid bullets and traffic (though there wasn't much traffic at this time of night), he was firing energy blasts at snipers, they were still being shot at, and Tracy was clinging to his arm and her briefcase with white knuckles. By the time they arrived at the police station and ushered her inside, he was torn between whether his life was too weird or whether the weirdness in his life was subsiding a little bit.
"And this is just a regular thing for you now?"
Tien Shinhan was leaning on his hoe, watching Yamcha talk animatedly about his job from the other night. He looked passive for the most part, but one corner of his mouth was tipped up in a grin. "I'm glad you find it amusing," Yamcha grumbled, using his own hoe to knock Tien's out from under him. As expected, Tien didn't even falter and smoothly bent to retrieve it. "It felt like a crappy escort mission in a video game."
"It sounded great, though." Tien stretched his arms over his head and made a satisfied noise when his back cracked. "And hey, she probably paid well, right?"
Yamcha shrugged and dug his hoe into the soil. "She's a freelancer herself, so not really. She only hired us for the one night. We have another job lined up for next week, and it's a long-term one with possibility of extension, so that's good, but in the meantime I have bills to pay, you know?"
Tien hummed and went back to work. "Sure. By the way, how goes the phobia of women?"
"Better, I guess. If it's for work, I'm okay, but if it's anything personal, I'm shot." Unless it's Bulma, he thought, but he'd known Bulma for a very long time.
"Ever think about going back to that host club?" Tien had the stupidest shit-eating smirk on his face that he always got when he brought up Yamcha's brief stint as a host. It wasn't even a very big smile, but it would forever rub Yamcha the wrong way.
"No." Yamcha scowled at him. "You are such a dick."
Tien shrugged. "You're the one who decided working in a host club was a good idea. I'm just gonna be the guy who never lets it go. Ever. It'll be part of my speech at your wedding."
"Hell no, you do not get to speak at my wedding. In fact, I'm not sure you're even invited."
"Can I come?" Chiaotzu asked, flying over with a basket of turnips.
Yamcha grinned up at him. "Sure, Chiaotzu. As long as your plus one isn't this asshole." He jabbed his thumb at Tien.
"Fair enough!" Chiaotzu flew off.
Tien just laughed his quiet laugh and got back to work.
Yamcha always liked coming out to Tien and Chiaotzu's farm. Puar didn't usually come with him, using the time he was away to run errands without his "big dumb face hovering over her" the whole time. She had also admitted that Chiaotzu still sort of creeped her out. Yamcha didn't mind and came to the farm with or without her as often as he could get away with. Away from all the noise and hubbub of West City, he could pretend he didn't have as hectic and hellish a life as he did. Back when he was a bandit, he'd spend days, sometimes weeks, at a time with no company except Puar, and he'd always been fine with that-not too many people at the same time, no women to freak out about, nothing he couldn't handle coming his way. It wasn't that he regretted leaving the desert with Bulma and Goku and Oolong, but he missed certain aspects of his life then. Things like working outdoors, getting dirty, climbing onto the roof of the makeshift house they'd had to look at the stars every so often. Being better at fighting than someone. Working on the farm with Tien gave him a few of those things back.
He'd never admit it to anyone, but the one thing he really missed about living in the desert was the stars. It was so easy to get lost in them for hours and wake up cold and groggy just before dawn. West City's lights drowned them out, and while he liked living there since it was convenient and he didn't have to resort to robbing people to make a living, he did miss those desert nights where he just looked at the stars and thought about things.
On one visit to Tien and Chiaotzu's, Yamcha had sat on top of their house for a little while and watched the sky, trying to sort things out. After a few minutes, Tien had joined him, with Chiaotzu following a while later. None of them said much, but the company had been nice.
A clod of dirt smacked into the back of his head. "Wake up, dumbass," Tien's voice said. Yamcha did his best to swipe the dirt out of his hair, embarrassed at being caught daydreaming on the job. Tien was a few feet away, his hoe over his shoulder, and Yamcha still had half a row to go. "You're clearly getting too old for this," Tien teased. "Falling asleep on the job! Really!"
"You're the same age as me!" Yamcha snapped, smashing his hoe into the dirt. Great, his face was probably bright red. "Besides, my training with Master Roshi all those years ago was harder than this!"
"Uh-huh." Tien turned and headed for the house. "When you're done, come inside and wash up. It's Chiaotzu's turn to cook, so we're having tenshindon tonight."
Still red-faced, Yamcha nodded and got back to work. Maybe, if Tien let him stay late, he'd go out to watch the stars again.
