Human Hospitality
by scoutergreen
Chapter 30
Exhaustion
Although she was reluctant to admit it, Bulma was starting to enjoy taking some time off. After her sudden illness she really had no choice but to stay at home and recuperate, and despite some initial resistance, she'd come to appreciate sleeping in and relaxing. For the most part, Yamcha was attentive; he knew when to hang around and when to give the engineer space, but Bulma still found she didn't want to spend a great deal of time with her boyfriend.
On the third day of her ten day sick leave, Bulma heard from Vegeta. She was lounging on the living room couch, binge-watching a television program when the familiar incoming signal tone from the Capsule ship chirped on her nearby laptop. She moved quickly to accept the call and pulled herself into a cross-legged position on the couch and put the computer on her lap.
"Hello? Vegeta?"
Vegeta leaned back in the pilot's chair, arms folded over his chest, and gave Bulma his typical slow nod. "Hello," his voice was raspy and a bit breathy, "it's been a while."
Many seconds of silence passed. Bulma immediately noticed that Vegeta looked well, his face still thin and also pale from a lack of regular exposure to sunlight. Vegeta studied Bulma's face and noticed her complexion appeared dull and uneven. She looked very tired and somehow looked older since he'd last seen her. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't like the idea that she may be very ill and withholding information.
Perhaps humans age especially quickly. How long is the average human lifespan anyway?
"You look sick," he continued, "really, you look like hell. Like you haven't slept in weeks or something."
"Oh, thanks for that! You're so sensitive to how others feel, aren't you?" The engineer deflected the comment, deeply offended that Vegeta would say she looked terrible but also aware that he was right.
"Woman..." the Saiyan rolled his eyes and continued on, "you're the sensitive one! I'm just saying the obvious: you look terrible and whether or not you believe me, there's a place within me that has just a bit concern for you right now."
"Don't you dare "woman" me, you pig! Ugh, how sexist! Vegeta, I can't believe you!"
"Wait, what? I don't underst-"
"Reducing me to a mere term like that?! Like I'm some kind of object? You're terrible!"
"Hey, just shut up for a minute!"
"Don't tell me to shut up, you prick! Did you call me just to insult me? Feeling a bit inadequate and need to feel better by knocking somebody else down, hmm?"
"You know what? Fuck this communication! I'm fucking done. Your dirtball of a planet showed up on my navigation screen today. That's why I called! I've one more stop, then I shall return to your compound. Expect me within seven to nine weeks. Now go get some fucking sleep, you stupid bitch, you're acting even more ridiculous than usual."
Vegeta disconnected and swung around in the pilot's chair, stormed downstairs to his living quarters and started to prepare a small meal. When he turned on the tap and filled a glass of water, he noticed the water had become a cloudy and developed an unpleasant odour. I am not tasting this, if it smells this rank it's probably filthy, Vegeta decided, and he dumped the water back into the sink and instead took a sealed bottle of water out of the refrigerator.
After several minutes, Vegeta came to the terrible realization that if he was just noticing that the water smelled bad, it had probably been contaminated for a while by that point. Completely disgusted, he decided that the water supply on-board would be only suitable for the toilet from then on. He'd just have to go without bathing and simply rinse his face with a few tablespoons of water when it was absolutely necessary.
He waited for illness and diarrhea to come, but his condition remained stable. He took a medication packet soldiers relied on whenever they were forced to drink contaminated water, grateful for his meeting with Dr. Zelen and the lonely physician's generosity. Three days later, Vegeta noticed he was closing in on his final stop: Planet X-12B, a barren planet with a sky like slate and a distant sun that provided just enough bright, cold light for the miserable place to be considered livable by PTO standards. There were food and water stores in the planet's main base: Vegeta knew it was imperative he collect enough fresh water to last him for another two months.
"Let's figure six litres per day with up to four for drinking, one for food if need be, and one for washing," he paced the simulator and carefully calculated the total, determining he'd aim to collect at least three hundred and thirty litres of water in total.
He brought the ship in for a gentle landing near the main base, ensuring he caught the attention of guards and traffic control agents in the process. As he exited the ship, he felt himself going oddly numb. He continued walking up towards the base and soon encountered an approaching line of scouts, their weapons drawn and aimed at the Saiyan.
"Stop right there, Vegeta! You're surrounded!" A scout at the very front of the line shouted, his bird-like beak snapping with disgust for the Saiyan in the process.
"Oh yeah? Guess I am..." Vegeta scanned the line of scouts, recognizing them as members of a rather weak species that wouldn't pose any real threat. Amused by their posturing, he looked the bird-men over and started to wonder what they tasted like. "Alright," Vegeta breathed deep, right into his belly, and started to concentrate a hot current of energy that started in his gut and flowed up his torso and into his right hand, "think fast!" He jumped high into the air, hurled the glowing red ball of energy at the line of scouts, killing them instantly with an intense wave of incredible heat that burned away feathers and cloth and blanched the colour out of their beaks.
When Vegeta landed back on the ground, the smell of burned feathers and charred skin was heavy in the air. He continued moving on towards the base, cutting down anybody in his path with blasts of searing hot energy.
Water. Food. Shower. Eat.
He silently moved through the base, mindlessly killing anything that moved.
More soldiers approaching, screaming at him to stop. He didn't even bother looking at them as he blasted them away. It wasn't long before Vegeta had totally lost count of how many scouts and soldiers he'd killed.
Water. Food. Shower. Eat.
He found pallets of bottled water, figured each bottle contained two litres of liquid, and added up how much he'd take. In a cold store room, he packaged food and preserved meats. Head buzzing, he indexed this new information and moved from the storage warehouse to the base's medical center to shower, clean any wounds, and take a selection of their supplies.
The warm water pulsed on his back, easing tense shoulder muscles and making the Saiyan shut his eyes and hum with pleasure. He washed leisurely, lingering in the steamy shower for a good forty minutes. He took the time to clean some scratches and scrapes he'd received during the attack he couldn't even recall executing, dusted his body with a scented powder that would help keep his skin dry, and dressed in a new, clean PTO uniform and light armour.
Vegeta wound up eating the leg of a scout who had been burned in the attack. The flesh underneath the charred skin wound up being delicious; a bit greasy but very tender and mild-tasting. Perhaps a bit overcooked. After eating, Vegeta brought two pallets of water (totalling about five hundred litres in total) and several packs of packaged food to the ship. He returned to the base two more times, first to collect medicine and supplies, and once more to survey the base, pick up some extra clothing, and ensure nobody had survived. Stomach growling, Vegeta ate the legs from another dead scout before opting to change his outfit entirely once he spotted some grease on his new leggings.
He waited a few hours before leaving, hanging around the perimeter of his ship, ensuring there was no movement or new energies to be sensed. He checked the ship's power console and discovered the fuel cells still had around 40% life remaining, meaning the final leg of his journey would likely be unremarkable as far as his on-board electrical situation went.
New cargo reasonably secured, Vegeta took off from X-12B as quickly as he'd arrived, and headed into space on his journey back to Earth.
Unable to shower, Vegeta decided to make the most of his "just washed" feeling and chose to forgo training for a while. He went into his living quarters with a bag of crunchy snacks, a bottle of water, and put on a movie. After some time, Vegeta noticed there was a dull pain in his lower back, and he went upstairs to look through the medical supplies he'd stolen in search of a good painkiller. After finding a bottle filled with tablets of a powerful drug and taking one tablet, he returned to his living area and went straight to his bed.
Twenty five minutes later, Vegeta lay on his back, eyes shut and body completely relaxed. He found himself reminiscing about life a decade prior, as a twenty-one year old with far too much money and an-already notorious reputation as a relentless and merciless agent of Frieza. When he wasn't on a mission or in-transit, Vegeta divided his time between intense training and equally intense partying.
Fuzzy memories of purge missions and fuzzier memories of either dancing or starting fights in a loud, dark nightclub or filthy bar when he was on shore leave. Sharp images of himself as a young man, more slender and tail prone to giving away his emotions, entering a ring to battle an opponent three times his size and breaking the brute's neck within forty seconds. A hazy shred of a memory about a prostitute he'd hired once, recalling her shapely legs and round backside. A painfully clear memory of staring into a cracked bathroom mirror in a filthy tavern and weakly reassuring himself he wasn't all alone in the universe.
Eyes half-open, Vegeta watched the television screen for several minutes. In his final conscious moments before falling asleep for seven hours, Vegeta thought of Bulma and wondered if she'd be well by the time he returned.
Several days of rest had done Bulma a lot of good. On her fifth day off, Bulma remembered that Vegeta had told her he'd be back within two months, and she made a point of highlighting the three-week window he'd given her; those were three weeks she didn't want to leave the Capsule Corp unless absolutely necessary.
Lounging on the deck with a glass of iced tea and her third cigarette in a row, the scientist wondered if Vegeta had completely reverted to his evil ways during his journey, and started to dread his approach. He'd been so terrible during their last conversation and she hadn't called him back, partially due to the worry that he'd react badly, but also because Yamcha was often around the house as she recuperated and he'd also expressed his (natural) dislike for the Saiyan.
Bulma's phone vibrated on the glass coffee table beside her chair, she picked it up and smiled when a text message from Yamcha appeared in her notifications.
Yamcha: Bulma, do u want 2 go see a movie? It is ur choice. :)
To Be Continued