4- HEAVY BREATHING
Hundreds of feet below him, the streetlamps and lights shining from the windows of buildings and homes clearly mapped out West City in the darkness. After about a year in the same place it had all become familiar, and when the sprawling estate of Capsule Corp came into view on the outskirts of the city, it felt dangerously close to a homecoming.
The grounds were lit up in a garish display, at least the east side where all of their entertaining took place. The living quarters and bedrooms that he and the Briefs' used were in the west wing, and the ship and gravity chamber were tucked neatly away around back, out of view from prying eyes. Even so, the noise from the gathering taking place would not escape his superior hearing, and he resigned himself to sleeping on the cot in the soundproofed spaceship. He'd been somewhat prepared for that eventuality; Bulma had given him fair warning that it was her father's 60th birthday party, and that it would be a huge affair likely run late into the evening.
He wasn't really surprised that the party was still in full swing at this hour, though he'd held out a thin hope that it might be over by the time he got back. Dr Briefs was, after all, a king among the men of this planet, as weak and bumbling as the scientist was. His intelligence, business sense and ingenious inventions were what set him apart here, affording him the money and power a warrior king on his misbegotten planet would have amassed through strength and battle prowess. This was his castle, and the closest thing the Earth would see to a proper royal banquet.
Vegeta alighted on the roof, staying well within the shadows beyond the gaudy lighting all over the courtyard, and listened to the end of the speech Dr Briefs was giving on stage. He was praising his daughter for all of her contributions to their company over the past few years, and announced his semi-retirement so that Bulma could step in on a greater capacity. There was a loud rush of applause, and a spotlight found her in the crowd, looking gorgeous in a strapless blue dress. She smiled graciously and gave a little bow, confident and proud.
The corner of his lip twitched up. By his own analogy, if this was her father's royal banquet, he'd just witnessed her informal coronation. He rolled his eyes. She was even wearing a subtle silver tiara in her hair.
The spotlight left her and music started up, assaulting his ears. He looked on in morbid curiosity, scanning the horde of self-important people. He had never seen so many humans gathered in one area before, and his nose crinkled slightly in distaste. To be fair, he loathed crowds of any species, but the way these people drank, danced and carried on in total oblivion to the threat that would be on their doorsteps in a couple of years was an affront to his sensibilities. He'd had enough of this spectacle.
Vegeta had spent the better part of the day a good distance from here, on a cliffside by the ocean. It had been a refreshing change of pace from the sometimes claustrophobic gravity chamber, and despite not being as physically challenging, he'd worked extensively on ki control and energy attacks, which were arguably more draining.
At sunset, he'd plunged into the ocean. The waves and currents had held no pull over his immense strength, and he had swam easily for an hour or so before rolling onto his back, floating and watching the stars. No threats existed here yet that could overwhelm him from the skies above or the depths below, and he'd felt free. Truly free for the first time. For all the doubts and self-hatred he'd showered upon himself in the past months as he had struggled to figure out what the hell he was doing, he realized now that uncertainty was a part of freedom, too, just not one he had anticipated while still enslaved.
He turned his back on the revelers and began to cross the expansive roof, heading towards the west side. All he wanted to do was hop down to the ship, shower the grit and scent of sea salt away, and get some sleep in relative peace.
"Bulma!" he heard a male voice call loudly, making Vegeta pause. "Hey, Bulma, wait up," he called again, sounding somewhat intoxicated.
Her voice fluttered up from ground level somewhere behind him as she mumbled a greeting, and he realized that this interaction was taking place apart from the main gathering. The music had switched to something more subdued and melodic, and Vegeta could hear their conversation well enough to know that the man was showering her with compliments. He scowled and kept walking when it was followed by her embarrassed tittering, until her voice rang out again a few minutes later.
"I said that's enough!"
Vegeta was familiar enough with that tone to know she was pissed, but he didn't think it was his place to interfere. Or care, quite frankly, but here he was, listening intently to their scuffle to gauge how serious things might be. His brief internal debate was put to rest the instant he heard her cry out. He was on the ground in the vicinity of her ki signature so quickly that he surprised even himself, as if he'd somehow figured out Instant Transmission without knowing it.
"You ripped my dress, you creep!" she yelled furiously, pushing away a man twice her size.
They were on a dimly lit stone pathway leading to the side entrance of the east wing, Bulma against a brick wall and the tipsy idiot accosting her having stumbled back a few steps. Vegeta was several feet away on the lawn to the side of the path, cloaked completely by the night, ready to step in and end this human if he touched her again.
Bulma inspected the tear in her dress, a small hole along the hem at her waist where the bodice and flowing skirts met.
"What a bitch," the man spat, reaching for her aggressively, "can't you take a compliment?"
"Seriously?" she snarled, her face a mask of fury as she cocked a fist back and smashed it directly up and into his nose.
Vegeta heard the crack from where he was standing and smiled viciously, a tiny tendril of pride at her feistiness curling through his chest.
"My nose!" the human howled, tears and blood running down his face, staggering backwards down the path a few paces. "I'll sue you, you shrew!"
Bulma advanced on him and stuck a finger out at his chest. "Just you try it, buddy! Who do you think you're talking to? I could ruin you with one phone call. If I even hear a peep out of you I'll have my legal team so far up your ass you'll need a colonoscopy to find them. Now get the hell off of my property!"
The man cursed loudly but turned like the coward he was, stomping down the path towards Vegeta with his hand held over his broken nose, completely unaware. He stopped a few feet away from the Saiyan, as if deciding whether or not to turn around and offer some final insult or rebuttal. Vegeta lost his patience.
He charged up a small point of ki on his index finger, finally catching the idiot's attention off to the side in the dark, and shot it at his feet with enough velocity that it sounded like a bullet. The man scrambled back and stared, wide-eyed, at Vegeta.
"Keep going," he threatened quietly, his voice dripping with murderous intent and sending the moron scampering away at last.
"Vegeta?" Bulma asked breathlessly.
He grunted in acknowledgment and approached her on the path. Vegeta had always been aware that she held the same kind of influence as her father, and not just by birth, but through her own drive and hard work. She wouldn't have killed that man, but she could have torn his world asunder in an instant just the same. It was so much more relatable, however, seeing her like this, still panting with rage and exertion, chest heaving, jaw set, eyes ablaze and the blood of her enemy smeared on her fist.
"How long have you been standing there?" she demanded angrily.
"Long enough to see that my assistance was not required," he answered.
She crossed her arms over herself and looked away, obviously struggling to hold back tears.
"Are you harmed?"
She let out some startling combination of a laugh and a sob. "My hand really hurts."
Vegeta grumbled and offered her his open hand in resignation, and just like that, with no hesitation on her part, he found himself cradling her swollen fist. The crazy woman trusted a leviathan wholeheartedly after being snapped at by a mere dog.
"Do you need some more light? Do you think it's broken?" she asked, her voice jittery and her body shaking as the adrenaline began to subside.
"I can see well enough in the dark." Her middle knuckles were very red and inflamed, and she let loose a stream of expletives when he asked her to open and close her fist, but nothing looked or felt out of place. "It's not broken," he concluded, giving the back of her hand one final sweep with the pad of his thumb. "You know, I was on the cusp of having some respect for you for a second there, but I can't abide by the fact that you are so frail that punching someone almost shattered your bones."
She pulled her hand back quickly, no doubt gearing up to give him shit, but stopped and watched his face, her brow crinkled. She must have seen the smirk that had come and gone almost instantaneously, because she looked at him suspiciously.
"Are you…teasing me?" she asked.
"Perhaps. Or maybe I find it a tragic joke that such a fighting spirit is trapped in a body of glass."
"Ah, the classic compliment wrapped in an insult," she snipped, but a smile was forming on her face. "It's better than what I usually get, I suppose. So, what do you need, Vegeta?"
"Nothing," he answered, confused.
"That's a first," she scoffed.
He looked down at the ground silently. She had probably meant it as flippant sarcasm, but it was a valid observation.
"Wait, really?" she asked. "You only came to see if I needed help?"
"Shouldn't you be at the party?" he asked irritably.
"I should, as a matter of fact, but I was bringing this in," she said. She gestured to an abandoned two-wheel moving dolly stacked high with stainless steel coolers by the side door. "For you, actually. I made sure to save you the good stuff," she winked.
The spotlight had literally just been on her and she'd been officially named the successor to her father's empire, yet in all that chaos, she had thought of him. Packed up food for him like a servant and had been on her way to deliver it to the main kitchen personally. "Why would you do that?" The words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them. "And you put yourself in danger, needlessly."
Her smile faltered. "I don't know why it always shocks you that I enjoy doing nice things for my friends, or that I consider you one of them. Regardless, there should have never been any danger to begin with. It makes me so mad, the nerve of that guy, at my own house!" she ranted, her voice raising. "Just because we went on a few dates while Yamcha and I were on a break, he thinks he can just saunter over and I'll throw myself at his feet. Nothing even happened between us then, we never really clicked and I fell for Yamcha's stupid line that he'd change his whoring ways and went back to him. Ugh, men!"
Vegeta had only met a handful, but he had observed many people from afar as he'd attempted to adjust to coexistence, and he had yet to be impressed. The very thought of weakling human males pawing at her suddenly disgusted him. "These Earth men, they are unworthy of you," he agreed.
Bulma laughed sadly. "Yeah, so where does that leave me? Alone. Forever." She quirked a blue brow and eyed him playfully. "Unless you're volunteering yourself, spaceman."
"I am the least deserving of them all," he muttered in a rare moment of outward self-deprecation.
"I think I might be a better judge of that," she said, taking a step closer.
She was challenging him, and he stood his ground while she played her game, trying to remain expressionless as the fingers of her uninjured hand curled around one of his wrists. Her eyes sparkled almost as much as her tiara in the moonlight, an ethereal beauty toying with him.
"Have you ever kissed an Earthling?" she asked, her face entirely too near to his.
"Of course not," he growled, glaring, trying to intimidate her from her current course. "Most races don't have such ridiculous customs."
"Did Saiyans?" she asked softly, staring at his lips.
His chest tightened uneasily. "I…I don't remember."
The admission broke a dam somewhere inside of him, that portion of himself he'd buried long ago that recognized the vast likelihood that he would never find a suitable mate of any species, let alone his own. He had never been in a secure enough position to seriously consider it, anyways, and who would've had him? Another monster as vicious as he, that was not intimidated by the reputation he'd left behind in the cosmos?
"Would you like to try it?" she whispered.
Her delicate fingers around his wrist may have well been a vice. He could not bring himself to pull away, not in this moment of weakness when his loneliness threatened to sweep him away like the wind, or when her grip seemed to be the only thing grounding him. She leaned in boldly, and he could hear her heartbeat quicken frantically, not in terror as it should be, but excitement.
Oh gods, she was serious; insane, but serious. He felt his own pulse kick up several paces and froze in uncertainty. She stopped just before making contact, so close he could feel her breath across his lips, her gaze full of a longing that he'd never seen directed at him before. It wasn't until her cheeks blushed pink with embarrassment, and disappointment flitted across her eyes that he realized she had been waiting for him to close the gap, unwilling to risk crossing that line if her affections were unwanted.
He wasn't sure what he wanted. Or, more truthfully, he had a hard time believing what his body and heart tried to convince his mind; that he did not want to disappoint her, or leave her presence just yet, or have this encounter end in such a mutually unsatisfying way. So when she released his wrist to turn away, he rocked forward lightly, pressing his mouth mechanically against hers before pulling back once more with a guarded look.
He was still trying to figure out what the whole purpose of such a ritual even was when Bulma's face lit up in a shocked but stunning smile. She leaned forward again, this time her hand reaching for his face. He watched it's approach tensely, allowing it but still instinctively flinching ever so slightly as her fingertips made contact with the curve of his jaw. Her eyes closed as she kissed him, and he marveled at how she could look so content right now, so calm and vulnerable, with him of all people.
Bulma's thumb stroked his cheek lightly, her fingers cupping his face a bit more firmly as she planted another insistent kiss upon his lips, and her injured hand gingerly guided one of his to her hip, trying to get him to engage, to relax. He thought back to earlier in the night, when he had drifted afloat in the ocean, suspended between the heavens and the earth and felt free, secure even, and let himself focus on the sensation of her, here with him.
Her lips seemed to cushion his own perfectly, and his mouth ceded to hers as they shifted and explored different angles, the soft friction between them igniting a heat in Vegeta's chest. His earlier anxiety over having his face touched melted away with each caress, her hand slowly sliding back to grip his neck and give herself leverage to bring her body flush against his. He broke their kiss with a small gasp, and she panted lightly for air against his throat to catch her breath. Having her pressed to him was almost overwhelming, her tiny ki somehow seeming to envelope his own, electrifying and soothing all at once. It sent a shiver of pleasure from his lower back up his spine, which Bulma must have misinterpreted because she started to shift her weight away from him.
His vocabulary seemingly lost, he instead tightened his grip where she had placed his hand on her hip. Gently, painfully gently, he brought his other hand up to her temple, stroking his fingers through her fine, silky hair before claiming her parted lips once more. Emboldened by his actions, Bulma succeeded where the pull of the oceans had not; he was drowning in her vibrant current, pulled under a little more with her every moan, each suckle to his bottom lip. He heard fabric tearing, ashamed to realize that he'd unconsciously fisted the material of her satin skirts roughly, extending the split hem dramatically.
"Don't worry," she said huskily as he released it hastily. "If I didn't have to get cleaned up and go back to the party, I'd let you rip it right off of me."