Human Hospitality

by scoutergreen

Chapter 73

New Stakes

As he came into the kitchen with his legs feeling like they were about to turn into jelly, Vegeta saw the elder Briefs woman in the midst of cooking a huge meal while Bulma, Krillin, Yamcha, and the future incarnation of his son sat at the table, each of the buried in a thin magazine.

"Oh, sweetie," Mrs. Briefs beamed at the scowling Saiyan, "I've made tomato soup. Would you like some?"

Vegeta shrugged and took a seat at the table, with Bulma to his left, a chair immediately to his right, and Yamcha the next chair over. After a few moments, he realized everybody else at the table was reading the same magazine. Yamcha was the first to look up from his copy of the magazine, and he swallowed a dry lump in his throat before closing the magazine and silently sliding it over to the Saiyan.

"So, uh, you're in the tabloids, Vegeta..."

"I'm in the what," Vegeta took the magazine and slowly flipped through the pages until he stopped on what appeared to be a full page spread about him, "what the fuck is this? Why the hell would anybody on this planet want to write about me?"

Sensing the Saiyan's growing agitation, Mrs. Briefs placed a large mug filled with hot soup at Vegeta's place and took the remaining chair at the table. She dared to give Vegeta's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he studied the article, and though he grumbled and growled, he did not move away.

Vegeta couldn't read the text, but he studied the photos and illustrations that had been included: there was a grainy shot of what had to him standing in line at a fast food restaurant (he identified himself by his obvious hair and a heavy white wrist brace he could vividly recall wearing on his left arm after he'd been released from the hospital), an artists' forensic sketch that very accurately captured his face and the skull underneath his flesh, a distant but very clear action shot of him as a Super Saiyan, caught in mid-leap from the edge of a ten storey building up to a twenty five storey skyscraper, and, most disturbing of all, a photo showing him from the chest up some time after his terrible accident in the simulator, hooked up to life support, his bruised eyes swollen shut and his slack mouth filled with a ventilation tube.

He was not amused. Vegeta threw the magazine back at Yamcha and growled low in his throat, drumming his fingertips against the table surface.

"Oh, sweetie," Mrs. Briefs cooed and pushed the mug of soup a bit closer to the Saiyan, "we can't believe it either."

"Do I want to know what the text says?"

Yamcha loudly cleared his throat and opened his mouth to begin speaking, but Vegeta's wild-eyed stare instantly muted him. After holding the look for a moment to ensure the human got the unspoken warning, Vegeta sighed and took a sip of the soup. It was delicious- the older woman had obviously made soup out of fresh tomatoes.

"Uh, Da- Vegeta," Trunks spoke up, "it's not exactly negative, but it is kind of... out there, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, please do elaborate," Vegeta rolled his eyes and took another sip of tomato soup, "because I'm just thrilled that some dickhead humans have apparently decided to write a feature about me!"

Bulma spoke before Trunks could even open his mouth to reply. "To put it simply: a widely distributed but not exactly credible gossip magazine published an article about you. It's all about how you seem to have come from out of nowhere, and yes, there are passages in the article that suggest you may not be, ahem, human, and you've obviously demonstrated your powers in public before considering that picture of you jumping fifteen storeys high like it's no big deal. Most humans aren't anywhere near as physically fit as you are. Nor do they have, uh, skulls like you. Given that you've been associating with me and my family's company for a while now, and given that I've had a kid out of wedlock since you came here... well, of course there's going to be some tongues wagging in the company! The thing is, we have no idea where they got all this information."

"So who took the photo of me when I was in a coma, huh?" Another sip of soup. He was furiously angry but the ache of his empty stomach and general feeling of exhaustion compelled him to remain seated and eat something before he passed out.

"I'll get my lawyers on it right away, Veg-"

"Don't," even more soup, "if you and your family are indeed famous, I'm sure any legal action risks becoming publicized, thus attracting even more attention."

Everybody at the table went silent. Eventually, Krillin set his copy of the tabloid down and pushed it away. "Huh... well, I see the logic in that argument..."

Several minutes passed in silence before Vegeta spoke again: "more," he passed his mug over to Mrs. Briefs, "and some crackers."

Future Trunks leaned back in his chair and sighed. The last thirty six hours of his life had been an unreal procession of things rapidly going from bad to worse, culminating in Perfect Cell's declaration that they would engage in a televised battle in ten days time- nine days, now that he'd been at Capsule Corp for about a day. He was finally coming out of the numbing, dumbfounding haze of utter disbelief and despair, but now he wasn't sure if he wanted to cry out in frustration or destroy everything in his path.

When Mrs. Briefs returned with a second mug of hot tomato soup and a dozen crackers for Vegeta, the Saiyan resumed eating, breaking the round crackers into halves and dipping them into the hot liquid and then only taking miniscule bites. Bulma immediately recognized it as an outward sign of Vegeta's escalating anxiety and rubbed his broad, warm back. "This will blow over soon, I promise."

The Saiyan heaved a deep sigh that bordered on a growl and pushed the mug of soup away. "I'm going to go vomit, and then I'm going to bed."

Pressing his heels into the cool tile floor, Vegeta slid his chair back and stood up very suddenly, starting to retch as he exited into the hallway. Everybody at the table heard a nearby door slam and the mood grew tense again.

Finally, Trunks slammed his hands on the table and screamed. "How do you people live with him?! I cannot believe this shit! Fuck!"

Bulma had taken Vegeta's mug of soup and dipped her fingertip into it to test its temperature. "Oh wow," she sucked her fingertip, "you sound just like your father right now."

Trunks didn't respond verbally, but he did suck his teeth and cross his arms across his chest.

"You really are Vegeta's kid," Krillin looked up from his magazine and gave the teenager a small smirk, "whether you like it or not."

A crack of thunder powerful enough to rattle the thick glass windows of Vegeta's bedroom woke up the exhausted Saiyan, who immediately wished he could just fall back asleep as his awareness of the world around him broadened and launched him into wide-eyed consciousness.

He rolled over in his bed, switched on the lamp, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light before reaching for the glass of water on his bedside table. After finishing his water and taking a few more minutes to get his bearings, Vegeta left his bed.

Vegeta and his two comrades had been on shore leave for just over three weeks, and the Saiyan prince had found it utterly impossible to sleep more than a few hours each night. He was exhausted and seemed to spend his days a few degrees out of alignment with the rest of the world, dragging his feet through washed-out, overheated days and sticky, bleary-eyed nights.

When Vegeta found Raditz passed out and snoring and sprawled across a long section of oversize seating in their shared living area, he wasn't altogether surprised by the sight and simply rolled his eyes. He went into the connected kitchen and rummaged through the refrigerator, settling on a couple pieces of fruit and some sort of effervescent liquid in a thick glass bottle with no label.

He ate in silence (aside from Raditz' snores) while his mind teetered back and forth between resignation to what his life had become and the near-overwhelming urge to grab what he could and start running for his life.

Vegeta was twenty eight years old and it seemed as though his life had settled into a routine of missions, travel, training, and terribly lonely periods on shore-leave. His actions and reactions felt automatic and procedural most of the time, but there were multiple incidents where Vegeta almost lost all sense of control, and a few occasions where Vegeta had almost certainly, albeit temporarily, lost his mind altogether. On one particularly disturbing occasion aboard a transit ship, Vegeta had woken up in the middle of the night and paced the room he shared with fifteen other soldiers, rambling incomprehensibly and referring to himself in the third person.

Empty and aching stomach filled just enough to eliminate the sense of hunger, Vegeta leaned against the kitchen island and watched Raditz shift in his sleep and yawn once, gradually coming to. For the first time in a few years, Vegeta envied Raditz, deeply jealous of the long-haired Saiyan's apparent ability to take a nap just about anywhere. Not only could Raditz fall asleep wherever he pleased, but he also had an uncanny way of sleeping for as long as he would said he would; if Raditz announced he was going to sleep for eight hours, he slept for eight hours, and if he said he was only going to nap for twenty minutes, he would shut his eyes, drift off, and come to exactly twenty minutes later.

Vegeta slowly twisted the cap off the unlabelled bottle, jumping away when it hissed loudly as excess gas was released. The hiss was enough to wake up Raditz, who immediately had his bearings and felt remarkably well-rested. He practically jumped off the couch and let out a mighty yawn."Heyyy," the elder Saiyan's husky voice rose when he spotted the bottle, "my jungle juice! I've been looking for that stuff forever!"

"Jungle juice," Vegeta mumbled, "is what, exactly?"

"Aw, c'mon," Raditz reached the kitchen island and took the bottle from Vegeta, "a refreshing blend of exotic fruits and very special herbs," he took a long sip before passing it to Vegeta, who only sniffed the liquid and glared at Raditz, "try it, you might just like it!"

Vegeta only took enough to wet the tip of his tongue and scowled when his mouth was filled with a slightly skunky taste that gave way to a cloying sweetness.

"Eugh," he managed to swallow and grimaced, "that's foul."

"Suit yourself," Raditz took the bottle back and downed the remainder in two gulps, "you goin' out?"

"No. I haven't been sleeping much."

Raditz only shrugged and returned to the couch. "So why don't you go out and get drunk? You'll probably just pass out when you get back home..." the Saiyan's crackling speech drifted off into a contented sigh and he sunk into his seat.

Vegeta returned to the refrigerator, stomach growling yet again. "Are you going out?"

"Mm, yeah, I guess," Raditz stretched and rose from the couch, apparently ready to leave, "some new bar opened up the next block over; you wanna check it out?"

Vegeta was so tired and so out of it that the journey over to the nearby nightclub didn't even register. He suddenly found himself in the middle of a huge, dark room filled with tiny bright lights and thumping music, surrounded by a small crowd of people more than happy to party their cares away. Why am I in here, he thought to himself as he downed a glass of some strong fruit liqueur, how did I get in here? After so many nights of fragmented sleep and weary days, Vegeta was so exhausted that the pulsing bassline of the track played over the speakers seemed to make his body twitch from the inside out.

At some point in the night, Vegeta went to the washroom to relieve himself. A bit unsteady on his feet, he went over to the sinks to wash his bare hands and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His cheeks were sunken in, his large almond-shaped eyes dull and half-lidded with exhaustion. He noticed fine lines underneath his eyes, and the circles there deep purple like a bruise. His normally soft, tanned skin looked dry and pale. I look so old, he thought, when did I start looking so terrible?

"I have to get out of this life."

Hands away from the running stream of water, Vegeta kept staring at himself in the mirror, completely unaware of the other patrons taking notice of the Saiyan's weird behaviour.

When Vegeta caught the sheer size of Raditz in his peripheral vision, he turned around just in time to see the elder Saiyan ducking into a bathroom stall with a strange woman, their drunken giggling echoing in the grimy space. He heaved an irritated sigh and left the washroom with the tap still running.

It was close to three in the morning when Vegeta awoke in his bed, his mouth dry and uncomfortably hot underneath one thin blanket. The little black cat called Scratch walked into his room as he came to and jumped up onto Vegeta's bed, trilling as it bumped his head against the Saiyan's chin.

"Hello, cat," the Saiyan gently rubbed the soft spot behind Scratch's right ear, "what do you want?"

A loud, insistent meow was the reply, and Vegeta figured it was the cat's way of telling him it was hungry.

"Hunger?"

Another loud meow and Scratch paced the length of the bed before jumping to the floor.

"Me too, cat," Vegeta got out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, "let's go."

With the kitchen and dining area lit only by a single light above the cooking range, it took Vegeta a few minutes to find the food intended for the cat, and the Saiyan felt very stupid when he realized the food meant for the cat really was designated by the image of a cat's face on its colourful label. One time in the past he had mistakenly believed the can with the picture of the cat had indicated its contents consisted of some sort of processed and preserved cat meat paste, intended for humans to consume on crackers in a style similar to a food called "pâté ". After spreading a spoonful on a cracker and trying it, Vegeta decided the paste was completely repulsive (not to mention it reminded him of the notorious "protein-style" rations sometimes used on environmentally hostile planets) but he figured it was some sort of human foodstuff he simply disliked and left it alone.

After he'd set a plate of the soft cat food on the floor next to its water dish, Vegeta realized that was the first time he'd ever fed the cat himself.

In the refrigerator, Vegeta found leftover chicken and mushrooms in a tangy cream sauce in a large Pyrex glass bowl and figured it was meant for him. He spotted a small dish of rice and took it as well, heated them both in the microwave, took a seat at the table and ate in silence, his head in that strange place where he felt strangely calm and empty and yet anxious and filled with racing, uncontrollable thoughts.

After several minutes the cat wound back and forth between Vegeta's legs before giving one more loud meow and walking out of the room, presumably to find somewhere to sleep a couple of hours.

Vegeta pushed his food away and sighed, resting his chin in his palm and staring ahead at the microwave's tiny clock display, its green glow especially bright in the dimly-lit room. He did not want to think of what was looming in the near-future and desperately tried to suppress every nagging thought that reminded him that the stakes were suddenly a lot higher. For the first time in many years, Vegeta had something to lose: the roof over his head (even if the living situation got a bit strange at times), the woman he wasn't so sure he could bring himself to leave again, and the growing baby boy that was indeed his flesh and blood.

It was as though without warning the universe had given him new circumstances he'd only wished for in moments of deep despair, and now that these once wished-for circumstances were now tangible, Vegeta wasn't so certain he really wanted it. His life suddenly didn't seem like a game of survival and evasion any more; it had suddenly become very serious all too quickly for Vegeta to accept when he felt like accepting it, and now there were others involved that depended on him for safety and survival.

He absolutely hated that there was no way to delay or dodge the inevitable, because it meant that Vegeta was no longer in control of the situation yet again, and failure simply was not an option.

The Saiyan hunched over in his chair, elbows pressed into the tops of his thighs, and he brought his face into his hands.