Human Hospitality
by pureleaf
Chapter 15
Dive Bar
Author's Note: Hey, thanks for all the lovely reviews! I appreciate your feedback. Furthermore, I'm basically going to ignore the Garlic Junior filler saga, so this fanfiction is NOT true to canon.
Bulma went out to the deck, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag before finally acknowledging Yamcha's presence. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him through narrowed eyes.
"Did you come back because you regret your actions, or did you come back because you're broke?"
Yamcha winced. He'd never heard Bulma speak with such sharpness, with such coldness in her voice. The warrior shook his head gently and stared at his shoes, unsure of how to reply.
"I came back because I feel like an idiot, and I wanted to apologize to you, Bulma. It wasn't right of me to speak like that..."
"No, it wasn't!" She snapped.
"I really care about you, Bulma, and when you told me that you'd let Vegeta stay here for all those months, I feared for your safety and freaked out. It was an overreaction."
"No kidding! So, what about that "Candi" woman? Where have you been staying this entire time?"
The warrior shot Bulma a sheepish smile and returned his gaze to his feet. "A cheap hotel. And Candi wasn't interested in me after she learned I no longer play baseball, so I deleted her information from my phone."
"Ah, so she was a groupie..." Bulma took a final drag from her cigarette before depositing the butt into an ashtray on the glass patio table, "guess she wasn't the challenging type, huh?"
"You have every right to be pissed at me, Bulma. I'm sorry for how I spoke to you and I'm sorry that I made assumptions re-"
"You accused me of having sex with Vegeta... are you serious with that nonsense? Like I said before, he didn't even lay a finger on me. Vegeta, he's just... well, he's like a weird friend of mine, and believe me when I say that I know how crazy that sounds! I'm going to stay in touch with him, seeing as he took the ship I built, but that doesn't mean I'm going to try and seduce him or anything. When he returns, I want you to treat him like any other guest. I'd like to put this incident behind us now. Why don't we go out tonight and grab dinner somewhere fun?"
"Now you're speaking my language, babe!" Yamcha wrapped his arms around Bulma and kissed her cheek.
Planet 56 had gone downhill since Vegeta's last visit in his late teen years. When he landed ten kilometres outside the planet's central hub of trade and communication, the reduced light pollution actually worried Vegeta. Clearly the planet had lost priority status and the once-gleaming buildings were already dingy as he flew in and landed a few blocks from the city's core. Despite the downturn, the streets of Economic Zone 56 were crowded with soldiers, citizens, and tradespeople.
"Damn it, I'm hungry..." Vegeta muttered to himself as he ducked into a narrow alleyway. He re-adjusted his headscarf so his entire face was revealed but his hair (and hairline) were still concealed. The smell of fryer grease from a nearby restaurant drifted through the alley and the Saiyan's stomach rumbled angrily.
No time to eat yet. I need to get up-to-date information...
Vegeta knew of a popular nightclub on Planet 56 called Sevn. It was a well-known, popular nightspot with PTO soliders, and therefore the chances of it still being open were fairly high. It took forty minutes of wandering through the dim, dirty city to find it, but the throb of bass-heavy electronic music soon drew the Saiyan closer and closer.
Not only was Sevn still in business, but it was still popular with PTO soldiers. Six soldiers hung around outside the doors, smoking cigarettes and talking very loudly. Vegeta felt his anger starting to rise at the sight of them.
"Hey, short-ass!" A tall, lean soldier with purple skin and yellow hair, clad in black leggings and armour, shoved Vegeta aside as he approached the door, "this ain't some tourist tavern! Get outta here!"
Vegeta swung around and a clenched fist made contact with soldier's jaw, shattering it and knocking several sharp teeth out of his small mouth. His scouter flew off his head and landed in the street, breaking apart into several pieces. The soldier began to wail in agony, blood and saliva pouring from his slack mouth, and he dropped to his knees and started to search for his missing teeth on the sidewalk.
Five scouters beeped and chirped, warning their wearers that the figure before them had a power level of at least 35,000 and rising.
"Anybody else?" The Saiyan eyed the five standing soldiers, lips pressed into a grimace and nostrils flaring as he took several deep breaths and felt his conscience slide into that blank space Frieza had encouraged him to find and rely on decades before.
The soldiers backed away. "We d-d-didn't recognize you..."
"You," Vegeta pointed at a pig-like man with large tusks and mottled orange skin, "do you have a payment card on you?"
"Y-y-yeah... you want it?"
"Do you wish to continue living?"
The orange-skinned soldier handed a silver card to Vegeta, his meaty hands shaking so violently from terror that he almost dropped it in the process.
"Your comrade is in shock," Vegeta side-stepped the growing puddle of blood and drool on the pavement and ignored the whimpering figure a foot away, "take him to a medical center and don't come back here."
The soldiers immediately obeyed and took off, carrying their barely-conscious comrade. Vegeta turned around and went inside the nightclub, fully immersed in the detached head-space he'd learned to use as a child.
Slow night, Vegeta noted as he scanned the club and counted perhaps forty patrons, but that's probably a good thing. Less chance of a massacre.
Sevn had gone downhill. The bar and light system hadn't been replaced since Vegeta had last seen the place more than fifteen years prior. The clientele, however, remained the exact same: PTO soldiers and prostitutes.
The first place Vegeta went was the washroom to discover it was still covered in vulgar graffiti and questionable stains, with yellowing light bulbs in wire cages and a filthy stone sink. It was utterly deserted, usually a bad sign in regards to cleanliness. He snarled when he caught his reflection in the wall-to-ceiling mirror set behind the sink, spotting blood on his windbreaker. He tore the garment off, removed the contents of its pockets, and vaporized the thin jacket. He looked at his reflection again and ran his tongue over his teeth.
Fuck it, time to be brazen. If they recognize me, they recognize me. Disguises will get me nowhere fast.
He pulled off his scarf and looped it around his waist, creating a small pouch against his hip to carry his items. The Saiyan felt rather odd in his outfit consisting of blue leggings, white T-shirt, white boots, and blue scarf-turned-belt, but it would have to do until he could get some intact armour and fresh clothing.
A young soldier walked into the washroom, recognized the petite man at the sinks as the Vegeta, and stopped in his tracks. Vegeta's gaze moved from the mirror to the terrified soldier, who didn't know what to do next and remained frozen in place with his jaw clenched tight and eyes wide open.
"Your clothes and armour; give them to me," Vegeta motioned at the soldier's set of armour and came closer.
"T-trade for yours?" The soldier nervously offered.
"Strip."
The soldier pulled off his gloves and kicked off his boots, pulled the armour over his head and set it on the floor. He peeled his thermal top and leggings off and set each item on the sink, careful to avoid any spots of water. He started to pull down his underwear when Vegeta shook his head.
"Good. Put your hands on your head and turn to face the wall."
The terrified soldier once again did what he was told without resisting. Vegeta could see his legs shaking.
"Don't piss yourself, boy," barked Vegeta as he took off his clothes, "the floors are already bad enough in here!"
The Saiyan was back into formfitting thermal gear and armour in under a minute and immediately started to feel more like himself again. He tucked his vials and gold into a small pocket located in the right shoulder and once again looked himself over in the mirror.
"Now that's more like it! Here's your new clothing, soldier. Once you're dressed, you leave through the fire exit and don't come back."
Vegeta left without waiting for a response from the soldier. As he moved towards the bar, the music continued to throb but many soldiers stopped speaking and watched the Saiyan in utter disbelief as he hopped on a stool and scanned the selection of alcohol available at the bar.
He ordered a bottle of beer before acknowledging two stunned soldiers to his right. "So, what exactly are you looking at?"
"You're Vegeta... aren't you?"
"In the flesh," the Saiyan continued to look at the different liquor bottles and sipped his beer, "not looking for a fight, though. That said, if you want to die, challenge me tonight."
Slowly, the level of conservation rose again and almost everybody made a point of giving Vegeta a very wide berth. After spending fifteen minutes at the bar, a soldier who recognized Vegeta and recalled working with him some ten years prior approached.
"Let's get a booth, Vegeta. There is so much we need to talk about," the soldier stood to Vegeta's left and gave a slow nod to the Saiyan when he looked up from his beer. He was nearly seven feet tall, with silky green hair pulled back into a long ponytail, soft violet skin, and large blue eyes. His nose was straight and narrow, chin noble and strong, cheekbones high and well-defined.
Vegeta recognized the soldier as Jabuka, a veteran of the PTO and somebody he had worked with on a few high-security deliveries and assassinations in his early twenties. He seemed to recall Jabuka having a power level similar to Cui's and had once lost a sparring match against the older soldier. Although the two had nothing in common and rarely spoke while working together, Vegeta considered Jabuka a decent, fairly intelligent comrade. He accepted the invitation and followed Jabuka to a booth at the back of the club.
"I can't believe it," Jabuka looked Vegeta up and down through narrowed eyes and sensed something about him was different, "you're alive and well, and I've been under the impression that you've been dead for more than eight months."
"Eight months? That long, huh? The slouches on Ardeheb just said I'd been killed by Frieza."
"Ardeheb?! What were you doing on that hell hole?"
The Saiyan shrugged. "What have you been up to, Jabuka? You look well."
"Same old, same old. Deliveries and the occasional assassination. It's not the most exciting work, but the pay is good and the schedule's easy. I'm more interested in what you've been doing. Let's be honest, Vegeta, you don't give a damn about what I've been doing for the last ten years. Don't bullshit me or try to make me feel easy about you being on this planet when you were supposedly killed. Something's up and I want to know what."
"Fair enough," Vegeta drained his beer and flagged a waitress, "just what exactly would you like to know?"
Jabuka removed his scouter and dropped it behind the booth. "For starters: how are you still alive?"
"Luck and skill."
The handsome soldier accepted Vegeta's response. "Where have you been hiding?"
The waitress approached. Vegeta ordered another beer for himself and pointed at Jabuka, who asked for a potent fruit-flavoured spirit on ice. He produced the payment card he'd taken from the soldier at the door and tapped it against the sensor hooked to the waitresses' belt.
"Who says I've been hiding? I've been travelling, interacting with all sorts of interesting people, picking up some new tricks. You know, all the fun stuff." Vegeta's lopsided smirk grew as he spoke.
"Cut the crap, Vegeta," Jabuka scowled at the Saiyan and unconsciously started to play with the end of his ponytail.
Vegeta laughed at Jabuka's annoyance. "I'll be perfectly honest, Jabuka, I'm out of the loop too. I was told that Frieza's alive and well, and that he killed me and ate my heart. I was also told that Frieza's en-route to some "unknown" planet in search of treasure."
The soldier nodded at Vegeta. "That's the story... but I get the feeling that you know more."
"I might," Vegeta pulled his beer off the tray as the waitress arrived at their booth, "but why should I tell you?"
Jabuka sniffed his drink and set it down on the low circular table between them. "You were always hard to deal with, Vegeta... how's Cui? Didn't he join your team for a while?"
"Cui's dead."
"What?!"
Vegeta's responded by shrugging and taking a long sip of beer. He set the beer on the table and pulled out his vial of stimulants. He wiggled the vial at Jabuka before twisting it open and placing two tiny pills on his tongue.
"Still into feeling fast, eh Vegeta?"
"I'm even faster now, Jabuka," Vegeta took another sip of beer and swallowed the pills, wondering how quickly they'd take to kick in on an empty stomach, "but it has nothing to do with these pills and everything to do with constant training and improvement. I just want to have some fun tonight. You want some?"
"Thanks, but I'll stick to liquor. What happened to Cui? I mean, when did he die? Who killed him?!"
"I killed him almost six months ago. His biggest mistake was following me around."
The violet skinned soldier couldn't believe what he was hearing! How could Vegeta have possibly killed Cui when the Saiyan had once been incapable of even besting him in a sparring session?
"Unbelievable... if what you are saying is true, then you've grown very strong, Vegeta."
"I don't lie. Heard from Dodoria lately, Jabuka?"
"No."
"That's because Dodoria's dead."
Jabuka felt his stomach start to clench. Sweat prickled the skin along his hairline.
"What about Zarbon? Any news about him?" Vegeta continued, keeping his eyes locked on Jabuka as he took another sip of beer. The Saiyan's stare was as chilling as Jabuka had remembered, and the soldier was almost too frightened to tell Vegeta that he hadn't heard a thing.
"Zarbon's dead too. Blew a hole in his stomach."
Neither of them said anything for many minutes. The music continued to blare through ageing speakers and the din of conversation and cigarette smoke drifted through the air.
Finally, Jabuka found the courage to speak: "I knew that story about your death seemed odd. But did you really abandon your mission? I found out you were assigned to purge Ahdar with Raditz and Nappa..."
"Oh yeah, they're dead too. Thanks for reminding me." Vegeta felt his pulse quicken and his hunger started to subside.
Jabuka nearly choked on his liquor. "What?! Holy shit, you must be joking!"
Vegeta laughed at Jabuka's shocked expression and stretched out across his wide seat. "Raditz was killed by his amnesiac brother and a Namekian on a very distant planet well outside PTO boundaries, and I dispatched Nappa after he suffered a serious spinal injury."
Another long stretch of silence passed. Jabuka was certain that his life would be over within a few hours. "What are really you doing here, Vegeta?"
"I'm looking for somebody, but more specifically, I'm on the planet in the hopes that I can get some food to stock my ship for at least two or three weeks."
"You have a ship? With living facilities on board and everything?"
"It's designed for one person, but yes."
"You'd have to get to a food distributor," suggested Jabuka, "there are some in this city, but I can't tell you if they're open at this hour."
"That's fine. I can wait."
"Do you want another drink, Vegeta?"
Vegeta quickly got to his feet and took Jabuka's empty glass. "I insist on buying the next round, Jabuka. It's been nice catching up with you. Same thing as before?"
"Yeah... please." Jabuka looked at Vegeta with a raised brow.
"I'll be back."
Vegeta returned to the bar and asked for two glasses of the spirit Jabuka had been drinking. "Make them both doubles!" He called to the bartender. Back turned to the bar, he reached into the pocket inside his armour and found the vial of powdered White Aura. He popped the cap open with his right thumb, dumped a little into the palm of his left hand, shut the vial and tucked it back into his pocket. He turned around in time to see the bartender set the drinks down on the bar, and quickly dumped the powder into one of the drinks as he picked them up.
The Saiyan returned to the booth, swinging his hips and swirling the glasses in time to the music, and slid the tampered drink to Jabuka. He sat back down and raised his glass. "I propose a toast, Jabuka! Here's to meeting old comrades and enjoying their company. I am so glad you approached me tonight."
Reluctantly, Jabuka raised his glass and clinked his against Vegeta's. He took a sip of his drink.
To Be Continued