Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball Z or any of its characters or songs, etc…
Living with You
Chapter 2
Bulma stared at Vegeta in mute horror. "Where did he come from?" she wondered frantically.
Vegeta crossed his arms, indicating that he wasn't leaving until he got an answer to his question.
"Well?" he asked viciously. "Why would you say such a lie? You KNOW I didn't touch you at all last night. What are you up to?"
Bulma stayed completely mute, unable to think or act in any way.
"Leave her alone, Vegeta." Yamcha wrapped his arms protectively around Bulma, thinking that if Vegeta did in fact try to attack them, at least Yamcha would die first and would look like he had tried to protect her. Neither of them stood a chance against Vegeta; they all knew it.
"Vegeta…" she began tentatively, "you know what you did, don't deny it."
She had had her opportunity to back out, but instead she chose to continue lying.
"What are you at?" he asked suspiciously. This was an odd thing for her to do and he wondered what could possibly have set her off that would make her say such a thing. "You and I both know that what you are accusing me of is a lie. What do you want from me?"
"…Nothing."
Vegeta gritted his teeth. He realized that she wasn't going to admit anything. He didn't have to talk to her any longer to figure that out. At least she wasn't going to admit to her lie in front of her boyfriend. Vegeta planned in his mind how he would confront her later when no one else stood in his way. He needed answers. Why was the woman suddenly falsely accusing him of raping her? Sure, he had not agreed to be nicer to her in words, but he had been entertaining the idea. But even if he had not said that he would be nice, which went completely against his nature, what difference would it make on Bulma yesterday compared to any other day? Why had this time set her off?
He stood silently for a while looking back and forth from Yamcha to Bulma and finally turned and left the room to go to his training, his mind heavy with his thoughts and her lie.
Later on Bulma was back in her room, back in the same spot she had been in the night before. Again she was watching the gravity room in the distance. Yamcha had stayed for a long time and tried to console her, but nothing he did had worked. If Bulma had been faking her fear the whole time, then eventually she would have given in to his pampering and would have pretended to be better after his confrontation with Vegeta. Unfortunately, she had had to face Vegeta with her lie, and that had greatly unsettled her.
"It was very stupid of me," she mumbled to herself.
What was Vegeta thinking about all of it? Bulma had read in one of her girly magazines called Cosmo that men HATED being asked what they were thinking. Women are always assuming that men are thinking about something important when in fact they might be thinking of belly lint or something as equally profound. Nevertheless, Bulma wondered what Vegeta was thinking. He HAD to be thinking about her lie, or at least had thought about it once during the day. Belly lint did not seem to be a thing he would thing about. Besides, being falsely accused of rape was not an ordinary thing to have happen in anyone's day. For such a proud person, what had it all meant? Was Vegeta angry? Puzzled? Ready to leave the house forever? Bulma couldn't help wondering about it.
She left her place from the window and paced slowly around her room. She felt it was only right and fair to go talk with him. Bulma knew Vegeta hated talking, but he deserved an explanation. He probably expected one after something as huge as this.
Bulma grimaced when she thought about what she had done. She hated him! She didn't want him anywhere near her, and now to have to feel bad for him because of her conscience was something extraordinarily difficult to deal with. Bulma wanted to continue hating him, wanted to keep an emotional distance so she could get things done. That's how Vegeta himself operated. He never showed any emotion for any reason…well, except anger and pride. He never showed appreciation, or love, remorse, pain, nothing. For all anyone knew, Vegeta, a prince of a once large and proud race, was nothing more than a husk full of dark clouds and hate. Bulma never bought it for a second though.
Maybe it was her human emotions, or her way of trying to see good in everything, but Bulma would swear to Kami that somewhere in Vegeta's dark clouds was a heart that could love and feel the same as anyone else. She thought that maybe it was a psychological thing where being stoic was armor to hide and protect some fragile being…just that Vegeta's armor was exceptionally impenetrable. He HAD to have feelings, Bulma thought. He had had such a difficult life. At one time he was a prince, then out of no where he was thrown under someone else's rule when he had been used to ruling. He had become someone's servant and had to be careful of what he said or did. Vegeta was sent to slaughter billions of lives, never allowed to grieve for himself, or feel regret for his actions. Bulma could see where having such feelings on Frieza's ship could get one killed. It was no surprise, really, that Vegeta became what he became, a silent, but calculating person with no visible heart. Even so, one had to be in him.
Bulma suddenly saw Vegeta's face in front of hers and she started, thinking that maybe she was having some sort of vision of him. He looked so real…
"What!" the vision yelled at her.
She started again and looked around herself. Bulma was for some reason outside and standing on the steps to the gravity room. She had no idea how she had gotten there, but she must have wandered down while she was thinking.
"Oh! It's really you!"
"Of course it's really me. What do you want, anyway?" He eyed her suspiciously, his eyes wandering over the grounds, especially lingering on the security camera aimed at the gravity room. For once he was happy it was there. Normally he would feel it was a nuisance. He was after all a Saiyan, what would he ever need a security camera for when he can sense danger and can beat it to a pulp? But now, the camera would record everything they did, and if the next morning Bulma decided to say he did something he didn't, he would have his proof.
Bulma hadn't really intended to confront him yet. She had no idea what she wanted to say! What COULD she say? What she had done, was one of the most stupid things she had EVER done in her life. Who in their right mind would accuse an irritable guy of rape? Wouldn't that just make him crankier? Of course! "Why didn't I think of all this before?" Bulma wondered.
She continued to bite her lip and stare absent-mindedly at Vegeta, who stared angrily back at her. He stood arrogantly in the doorway to the gravity room, his arms folded over each other and leaning against the frame. He had no intention of going back into the gravity room for two reasons. The first being that he wanted to hear her explanation if she decided to tell him why she had accused him of such a ridiculous thing. The second was that there wasn't a security camera in the gravity room. If she tried to accuse him of rape again the next day, he would have no proof against her.
Finally, after what seemed like a long time, Vegeta decided to begin the conversation, though not in a pleasant way. "Why the hell would you do something like that? Did you think it was a good idea? Because I can assure you, woman, it wasn't. How dare you accuse me, a PRINCE of taking advantage of you. I wouldn't lower myself by having anything to do with you other than having you work for me. And by work, I mean fixing the junk that I break, making the useless crap that you do, and feeding me. Anything outside of that, I would never allow to happen. I have decency, woman! But you! You even insult yourself by accusing me of raping you because it was a lie. How did you even come up with such a thing? Is it wishful thinking?"
"No, I-"
"Was it because you wanted to make your 'boyfriend' jealous? He's been cheating on you again, hasn't he? I won't be used as some little toy that you want to play with. Those were serious accusations, and they lead to serious consequences."
Here Vegeta paused. He was seething. Bulma looked at him and saw that he was definitely having a fit, to say the least. Serious consequences…sounded like a threat.
"That idiot probably believes you," Vegeta resumed. "Now he'll go and get the rest of them and they'll all come over here on your side, trying to wipe out the bad seed you invited into your house. Isn't that right? Then I'll have to talk to them and kick the shit out of them all. That seriously cuts into my training schedule! And you know what? It will all be for a stupid lie that you told! What are your motives, woman?"
He was extremely irritated. He was just brushing over the surface of things. Of course it would cut into his training time if everyone came over to confront him, but that wasn't really a problem for him. He could take out all of them but one. Kakkarot. What he was more concerned about was her motives in all of this. He meant to get the answer out of her one way or another.
Bulma was taken aback by his outburst, but he had made her angry with a few of the points he made. "First of all, oh Prince of All Monkeys, I don't care if you're a prince or not! How dare I accuse you of rape? I'm sure that you have raped people before. You take what you want, right?"
Vegeta looked livid when she said that. "Don't you think I have more pride than that? Do you really think of all my wrongdoings, that that would be one of them?"
"Yes! You seem likely to have done something like that. What? Destroying solar systems was enough? That was the limit you would allow yourself to go to? I think not. If you can kill THAT many people, I'm sure you allowed your holiness to rape people too. Moving on, you are lucky that you live here. Who else would make you the 'junk' that you train with? If you went out into the wild or just went somewhere other than here, you would NEVER be able to get so much good training in." Vegeta opened his mouth to interrupt, but Bulma wouldn't have it and held up her hand to stop him. "And even if you don't think that the training you get right now is good, it's better than punching air. The gravity room challenges you. There are so many different combinations of attack programmed into it, I'm sure you haven't gone through all of them yet, plus there's more of a gravity pull in there which adds to the challenge. Tell me, where else are you going to find that?"
"Who cares! Answer the damn question, why did you lie?"
"Because I hate you!" she screamed.
"And? What is your point? I know that already."
"Wha…" She was dumbfounded. Bulma didn't expect a reply like that. Was she that obvious? She thought she had done a remarkable job in keeping her anger in check around him lately.
"You have not been looking at me in a pleasant way for a while. Before, you always tried your best to keep the peace, now I find you deliberately starting arguments with me, I suppose in order to get me to dislike you enough to leave the house. And now, correct me if I'm wrong, you made up this ridiculous lie in order to force me out. Either I will leave on my own because of my disgust with you, or I will be chased away by Kakkarot. Either way, as long as your lie holds, I will be driven away one way or another. Am I right?"
Bulma stood there, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, as she tried to find something suitable to say to all the truths that spilled from his lips. "Well…I…"
Vegeta stared at her intently, waiting to see if she would admit the truth or would continue lying. He almost wished that he had someone to bet on it with, though he thought that even Bulma didn't know what she would say to him.
Bulma took a deep breath and looked directly into Vegeta's black eyes. "Okay. You're right. But Vegeta! I told you last night that I wanted you to treat us better! I really meant it." She saw how powerful he was, and how easily he could kill everyone on the planet, let alone a solitary girl like her. As she thought of it, tears sprang to her eyes, which she tried to hold back. Anything of that sort would surely make her look weak to the Saiyan, and above all, he mustn't think she is weak.
"I wanted you to be nicer or more polite, but you always go out of your way to be a jerk. I was serious, Vegeta. I really wanted you to stop."
She drooped her head as she realized that she was losing her battle against her tears.
Vegeta had stood watching her, had seen the tears slowly flooding her eyes. He hated to admit it, but her plea had slightly moved him, and he didn't want to stand there watching her cry any more than he had to. He grabbed her by the arm and led her into the gravity room. This was it. He was done for. He had left the relative safety of the security camera. He opened the trap door hidden behind the control panel and let Bulma enter his more private rooms. It was like a small apartment that Dr. Brief had created for Vegeta's use, as he figured that Vegeta wanted little to do with the family. Unexpectedly, Vegeta chose to stay around the humans and opted for rooms inside the Capsule Corporation building, and only a few rooms away from Bulma, in fact. He only used the rooms in the gravity chamber when things became too annoying for him within the household.
He led Bulma to the bathroom, grabbed some toilet paper for her and watched as she blotted the area around her eyes. He noticed that she tried not to look at him out of shame, but that she stole a few hurried glances at him to see if he was witnessing her weakness.
Bulma felt so ashamed, but also awed that he actually let him into his rooms. As far as she knew, no one but Vegeta had been in them since it was made. She noted that it was remarkably clean for it being a bachelor pad of sorts. The small bed was against the wall and perfectly made, without one wrinkle in the sheets. Furnishing was sparse, which seemed to be Vegeta's way anyway, but Bulma felt that it could use a few decorations. She realized that she was drifting from the subject and looked directly at Vegeta, waiting for some sort of answer or reply to all that she had said. He seemed to know her well enough. Enough to know about all of her plotting, to see the difference in her attitude towards him lately.
"Well?"
"Well what, woman?" he growled.
"Well, what do you have to say? What else? What are we going to do about this?"
"If you will admit that it was a lie, I will let it go."
"I just did…"
"You know what I mean. I want you to say it in front of everyone. I want to be excused for the crime I didn't commit."
Bulma nodded. "Okay. You at least deserve that," she looked at him imploringly, "but I want you to treat us better, if I do."
"Fine. Consider it done. I won't start treating any of you better though, until you have confessed. Once you've done that, then you will notice a considerable change in my attitude. Are we agreed?"
"Yeah!" Bulma smiled happily.
Yeah, two years, huh? Heehee… Well, actually I thought I had posted this chapter and I went back here to look at it and I found that it wasn't posted. So, I'm posting it now! I had already started on the third chapter and I had a list of things that I had plotted for this story, but now I don't have that paper and I only vaguely remember them. So, I'm going to have to think about what I'm going to do now, and also try and look for that paper! So hopefully, I'll be back soon lol.
Lady Branwen
