Human Hospitality
by pureleaf
Chapter 14
The New Normal
The day after Vegeta had suddenly left, Bulma made good on her promise to take Yamcha out for a great dinner and made reservations at a popular restaurant called Bistro Nineteen.
The first night with Yamcha back on Earth had been very tense after he accused Bulma of caring about Vegeta more than her own boyfriend. Bulma furiously denied these accusations, but her concern for Vegeta's safety lingered in the back of her mind even when they made love for the first time in many months.
Bistro Nineteen was expensive, trendy, and it was notoriously difficult to get a reservation. Bulma had lucked out, scoring a table for two for seven thirty after a last-minute cancellation that very afternoon. She purchased Yamcha a brand new suit and found a sleeveless black dress to wear on their date, pairing it with delicate silver jewelry and a pair of low heels.
Over a shared plate of appetizers, Yamcha asked Bulma about what had happened on Namek.
"It was a mess, Yamcha. I'd rather not even think of how crazy and out-of-control that entire situation was from the second we landed there, let alone talk about it. If it weren't for Gohan, Krillin, and Vege- um, those three made one hell of a team before Goku arrived and if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be alive and you'd still be dead. I'm just glad you're back!"
Yamcha rolled his eyes at the mention of the Saiyan's name. "I still can't believe you offered him a place to stay... and right across the hall, too! What the hell were you thinking? It's a miracle he didn't kill you."
Bulma sighed and spread baked brie on a slice of baguette. "All things considered, Yamcha, he wasn't a horrible guest. Not perfect, but he wasn't as destructive as I initially feared. He's just... intense. There's a lot going on in his head."
"Uh huh," Yamcha threw back a gulp of red wine, "but you can never trust somebody like that. If he wasn't intent on killing you, he was probably planning to rape you."
The young engineer felt her blood pressure spike at Yamcha's remark. "You know what, Yamcha?" Her lips were vibrating with anger, "I offered to let him stay with my family under the condition that he did not touch me, a condition he agreed to, and not once did he touch me! He kept his word, and that matters a great deal to me!"
"You got lucky, Bulma," Yamcha poured himself another glass of wine from the bottle they were sharing, "really lucky. And he still ripped you off."
"The jewelry and alcohol can be easily replaced. It's obvious he took stuff he could easily trade."
"And now you're defending his actions! You slept with him, didn't you?"
Just then, Yamcha's phone buzzed across the table, and before Yamcha could pick it up Bulma took it to see who was contacting her boyfriend. A picture of a heavily made-up woman with pale blonde hair extensions and huge breasts flashed across the screen.
CANDI: XOXO hi babe, r u back frm ur retreet yet? Missin u n ur sexxy bod tonite ;)
The warrior swallowed a lump in his throat as Bulma stared at his phone, the colour draining from her face as she re-read the text message several times. Finally, Bulma rose from her seat at the table and gently set the phone back down on the table. "I waited for you to come back, Yamcha, and I really don't appreciate that you keep accusing me of cheating on you because I offered somebody in a bad situation a safe place to stay. Unlike you, I'm serious about that monogamy thing we supposedly agreed to. Here," she reached into her evening bag and dropped several bills in Yamcha's lap, "pay the bill and find somewhere else to sleep tonight. I don't want to see you until you think you can commit to me and me only. Good night."
She stormed out of the restaurant, forgetting her jacket in the process, and hailed a taxi to take her home.
Yamcha sighed, flipped through the bills and discovered Bulma had given him eight thousand Zeni. It was enough to pay for dinner and rent a nice hotel room for at least a week. He put the bills in his wallet and picked up his phone.
YAMCHA: R u home now? Wanna c u ASAP
Ardeheb had been a bust. Everybody Vegeta spoke to on the hellish little planet claimed Frieza was alive and well, supposedly en-route to an unknown planet in search of treasure, or so the story went. He refrained from killing anybody else, rather concerned with getting blood on his new tunic.
Vegeta acquired scouters from a pair of low-ranking soldiers in exchange for a few shots of the blue liquor. He'd gone into a stuffy tavern that stunk of urine and chose not to eat or drink anything, repulsed by his surroundings. He let the soldiers drink directly from the bottle, unconcerned with contaminating the liquid inside.
The barkeep said nothing when the strange traveler with the headscarf and tunic produced outside liquor and immediately started speaking with soldiers. He got a bad feeling and slipped out the back door to smoke.
"So Frieza's alive, then? Thank you for the information, soldier."
"Of course he's alive! Do you know how powerful Frieza is? Nobody can defeat him."
"Is that so?" The Saiyan's eyes narrowed behind the slit in his headscarf.
"It's the truth, man!" The younger of the two soldiers said, a humanoid with limp lime green hair and purple eyes, "I heard this rumour that some solider called Vegeta went AWOL about a year ago and Frieza personally tracked him down and killed him. And that Vegeta guy was supposedly a killing machine!"
"Oh, yeah! I've heard about that Vegeta guy too!" The older soldier, a scaly creature with a sharp nose and beady red eyes, nodded in agreement and looked back at the mysterious figure before him, "the story goes that Vegeta was plotting to overthrow Frieza, but that Frieza caught up with him and killed him. Ripped his heart out of his chest and ate it whole."
"That's quite the story. Good luck to you both," Vegeta adjusted his headscarf and put the scouters into his bag, "you're going to need it in the PTO."
He'd returned to the ship to find a scout circling around it, talking with somebody on the scouter installed into the helmet he wore.
"Hey, you there," Vegeta approached the scout, "leave the area now! This is your only warning."
"Who the hell are you?" The scout scowled at Vegeta and pointed his sidearm at the Saiyan. "Identify yourself!"
"I'm Vegeta," the Saiyan flung a blast of energy at the scout, who was immediately vaporized, "and I'm not dead!"
He boarded the ship and took off, unsure of where to head next.
It was one in the morning in West City when Bulma decided to try contacting Vegeta's ship. She'd returned home from dinner, furious (but not entirely surprised) with Yamcha's behaviour, changed into sweatpants and a tank top before going to the lab to continue working with the samples of medicine Vegeta had provided her.
She missed Vegeta's company. He would regularly wander into her lab, pull up a chair, sit in it backwards, and silently watch her work. He was as comfortable with silence as she was, and he listened intently when she spoke.
Vegeta had trained for five hours straight at ninety times Earth's gravity before he set the gravity back to normal and rinsed off in his shower and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. He was eating a tin of tuna and some crackers when the video screen on the console flashed and the computer said: "INCOMING VIDEO CALL... INCOMING VIDEO CALL... INCOMING VIDEO CALL..."
He chose to accept the call. "Yeah?"
"Vegeta! You're alright! And... you're eating. Of course you are. Where are you?" Bulma's face broke into a huge smile when she saw him leaning back in the pilot's seat.
"Um," he stopped to swallow a mouthful crackers, "I left Ardeheb a few hours ago. Not a great holiday spot, just in case you're wondering. I'm just trying to get some accurate information before I barge into PTO territory."
"Why did you leave, Vegeta? We were all really upset that you chose to run away like that!"
The Saiyan shrugged and doubted the Namekians or Bulma's boyfriend were upset that he left. "It really doesn't concern you."
"Well, you stole my stuff and took off in the ship I built, so yes, it does concern me!"
"I'm looking for Kakkarot. He must be hiding out somewhere, getting even stronger, and I just can't sit around on Earth until he feels like coming back," Vegeta dug around the cardboard box searching for more crackers, "but I'll return eventually."
"You're always welcome back here, Vegeta. Why didn't you at least tell me you were planning to leave? I could have given you some supplies..."
"It was a bit of a impulsive decision, I'll admit that much. I grabbed what I needed and took off. So, where's your boyfriend? You two seemed pretty damn content as I was leaving."
"Ugh!" Bulma's upper lip curled at the thought of Yamcha. "Don't remind me! He'd rather enjoy the company of some floozy with fake tits over his faithful girlfriend!"
"Anyway..." Vegeta sighed. He studied Bulma's image in the monitor and tried to wrap his head around the concept of a human female with artificial breasts.
"Be careful, Vegeta. I care about you and want to see you return in one piece. You can call me if you run into trouble or just need to talk to somebody. By the way, there's some tools in a red box in the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink. You'll find some screwdrivers, a few hammers, and a drill in there."
"Ah-ha," Vegeta reached into his bag and showed Bulma the scouters through the monitor, "that's good to know. I got these today so I'll be able to listen in on Frieza's men. The official story is that Frieza's alive and I was little more than a snack for him, so I'm going to take advantage of the situation for the next little while."
"Oh god..." Bulma tensed, "be careful. Goku would be upset if he knew you were hurting people..."
"Please," he sniffed, "Kakkarot should be more concerned with his damn kid than with what I'm up to. I do what I need to do in order to survive, Bulma, and don't you ever forget that!"
"Even if it involves stealing jewelry from your hostess..." muttered Bulma.
Vegeta growled low in his throat, the first proper growl he'd let loose in what felt like years. "I'll pay you back someday, if the pieces mean that much to you. Besides, aren't you rich? Just buy some new crap to wear. I have to go. Good-bye, Bulma." He terminated the connection and started pacing the ship again, his mind racing. Did Bulma really want him to return in the future, or was she just offering him platitudes? She hadn't been as upset as he'd suspected she would be, in fact, she seemed more concerned for his well-being than anything else.
Something deep inside him almost felt badly for Bulma, knowing her boyfriend was already with another woman. She'd mentioned him often and seemed quite infatuated with him.
"Fake tits. That's just..." Vegeta spread his fingers wide and held them six inches above his pectorals, trying to imagine what she'd described, "...vulgar."
For the next eight days, Vegeta travelled through space with no real destination in mind, training for up to ten hours straight and sleeping at least eight hours every day. Bulma called him once more, on the sixth day, but he ignored her call.
When he awoke on the ninth day, Vegeta decided to look out the window and spotted planets that looked oddly familiar. He went to the console and realized he was deep in PTO territory. Why hadn't anybody intercepted him?
Maybe they're too preoccupied with pretending everything is normal to bother with one little ship...
He went to the fridge and realized he was down to a jar of salsa and two apples. He set the coordinates for Planet 56, a small, cool planet with two moons, a distant sun, and an atmosphere that was very similar to Earth's.
"ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL... TWENTY EIGHT MINUTES."
"Ha! I knew this place looked familiar. I can get things to eat there. Maybe even sleep somewhere else for the night. Better figure out what I'm going to barter with..." Vegeta went downstairs to his sleeping area and pulled his gym bag from under his bed and unzipped it.
Planet 56 had more to do, and therefore more people to interact with. There was always a risk he'd be caught, but it was very possible that he had the highest power level on the planet and any calls for help wouldn't be acknowledged in time.
Vegeta went into the side compartment and looked at his vials. He read the labels and found three that would be useful on the planet: liquid CX-980 (a dissociative substance frequently used to drug unsuspecting victims in crowded nightclubs), a vial filled with miniscule tablets containing a strong stimulant, and a potent powdered anaesthetic that PTO soldiers called "White Aura".
He looked through the jewelry he'd stolen. The first piece he examined was the tiny arrow, which was meant to be hung on a thin length of chain. He found the thin gold chain at the very bottom of the side compartment and slid its flat end through the tiny loop on the arrow, clasped the ends together and held it up for examination. The piece was so delicate and beautiful and after looking at it for several minutes Vegeta heaved a sigh and put it back in his gym bag.
"I can't part with that stupid necklace! Damn it, Vegeta..." he buried his face in his palms and fought the urge to scream, "get your shit together. Use one of the fucking rings, you fool."
Upstairs, the computer initiated a countdown to landing. Vegeta pulled one of the rings and the thick gold chain out of the bag, zipped it shut and shoved it back under his bed, and put everything into the pocket of his windbreaker. He took his blue scarf and wrapped it around his head (the sensation of his hair flattening down around his head and brushing against the back of his neck was very strange) and loosely around his mouth and neck. Revealing his nose and eyes was less likely to arouse suspicion, he reasoned.
His ship came to a stop. "DESTINATION REACHED. THANK YOU FOR TRAVELING WITH CAPSULE CORPORATION. HAVE A NICE DAY!"
Seated at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee and plate of fresh fruit, Bulma flipped through an online jewelry catalogue on her tablet, searching for some new rings to order. She found herself missing her lunches with Vegeta, even if they were sometimes awkward and the Saiyan's table manners were occasionally lacking. She missed his bone-dry sense of humour and even missed the way he suddenly announce he needed to resume training.
"Bulma, honey," Mrs. Briefs came into the kitchen with an armful of fresh-cut flowers, "Yamcha's waiting outside for you. He seems pretty upset... maybe you should go talk to him?"
The engineer looked up from her tablet and immediately asked herself how Vegeta would have reacted to Yamcha's return. "Okay, Mom. I'll go see him."
To Be Continued