Yamcha stared at the whiskey in his hands, tipping the bottle in his hands and watching the liquid slosh around in its container. He glanced up at the clock, ticking away.
As time continued to droll onward, the past felt farther and farther away. Puar spoke to him, but they felt distant. He felt like shit. Blearily, he turned to his closest friend and informed her he was all right, with a plastered smile like one of those heavy makeup commercials, her concerns were unfounded. But his heart remained in turmoil and agony, its vision tunneling into the aquatic blue haired genius that was Bulma Briefs.
He stared at his bed within the alcoves of the empty sand dunes.
Krillin returned to Roshi for training, Tien had been fixated on his own motivation and desire to grow stronger, Goku always trained, that simpleminded buffoon. They were friends until the end but they were not here, fixated on the future warnings and tides of destruction of two androids built to surpass Super Saiyan, and he could not blame them, would not blame them, but he wanted time to talk, to just vent, to just make them understand. Goku… that idiot went into a marriage he had no idea what it entailed, what responsibilities to the significant other or the dedication, but he couldn't blame him, for he had been raised with only a simple understanding of education by his adopted grandfather, and he had tried his best, yet he knew asking him was foolish. Tien was with Launch but even he couldn't understand it, long been trained by Crane School and far too stoic to understand it. Krillin had a one night stand with a girl named Marron that had also left, a gold digger… perhaps he would never attempt another advance at romance.
He sat alone. It was once him with Bulma. Following Piccolo's defeat in the World Tournament, Yamcha had taken her here. He expressed the fact of his past that he was an orphan like Goku had been. He only started as a desert bandit living off of the overbearing heat of the desert tombs. Surviving and living came easily to him as Goku had. A night of downing spirits… Yamcha could freely admit he wasn't too heavy of a drinker. With it settling into the pit of his stomach inflamed, Yamcha was hit with the sudden urge of the beauty and brains of Bulma Briefs of the moonlit sun enhancing it only further.
They fucked and consummated in the bed he sat on now. But that was of the past. Yamcha, perhaps no longer in his nervousness around girls, but still hopelessly unsure of how to treat such; he wasn't Goku, but he was unsure of himself, tossed her onto bed with the superhuman strength attributed by Roshi's training. It was foolhardy but Bulma requested it in her insatiable lust of her drunken nature, with him drawn further and further in as they embraced and met in a night of passion of a desert bandit and a haired mechanical genius. Cheesy, he realized it. Perhaps cliche even. But it meant something to him.
Did it even matter to Bulma? Or was she searching for… him? Her sights settled on him? Jealousy and rage brewed in the furnace of his addled mind even before he could temper it.
Puar at last returned for rest. Yamcha could sense her already returning back to her own hammock she draped over her window.
He moved out from their home. His footsteps crunched in the sands outside. The air was cool. He watched the same darkened skies above, beyond his home of Earth and his friends and into uncharted territory. Of aliens that had threatened to destroy their home or conquer it. Slug… Turles… Frieza… he recalled the names of them as he dropped the bottle and looked back to his darkened azure tinted reflection.
He was hit then as he stared around with that sudden urge of desperation. He needed to know. He didn't care.
Taking off to the skies as he shot off like a rocket, he flew away from his home to the Capsule Corp, home of Bulma Briefs.
He arrived there quickly as the breeze turned cooler. The dome shaped home came into view and he landed directly on the doorsteps of the home.
He could only stare blankly at the door for a moment, wondering if Mr or Mrs Briefs would open if he knocked. If Bulma answered… what could he even say?
A surge of power he felt skyrocketed as he felt the energy directly in the direction of the gravity chamber. It was still darkened. Perhaps not as insidious as they first met, but he could hardly be called good now; even Piccolo believed and reassured that the owner of that strong energy would not try anything to threaten Earth, not with his strength at least now rivaling his own and Goku as the fabled golden state of myth and legend.
Yamcha's honed and trained senses immediately latched onto the signature as an instinctive reaction from fighting and years of training.
" As much as I hate to say it, we need Vegeta if that boy from the future is right. Even then… even if he does try something now, Goku will put a stop to it before that happens. Whatever we have with him does not matter, Goku assured me he'll keep an eye if he tries anything once more."
Piccolo's assurance to him, Krillin, and Tien as they met at Roshi's home to discuss the events that had partaken should have brought a reassurance to Yamcha, but they did not.
The door barged open as the familiar female voice and beautiful face was etched into one of fury and disgust. "That fucking idiot-! Yamcha?!"
Yamcha didn't get the chance to explain as her sudden surprise and shock returned back to fury as they watched the chamber rock back and forth wildly. Smoke emanated from either something the owner had broken in his intense training or from the scorched remnants of ki blasts, neither were sure.
She brushed past him once more. Piccolo's words echoed in his head.
He was perhaps being selfish. But why should he care, he thought, as he watched the man who had taken it all from him, stumbled out painfully, shouting curses at her as his battered and burnt form topple over; he couldn't help but feel a hint of satisfaction .
"Yamcha!" Attempting to carry the now unconscious Saiyan Prince, (wouldn't it be a pleasure if he was dead), she screamed, turning around to ask for his help.
All the desert bandit could do was stand there and wonder why with a blank expression on his face.
Why did she leave him? Why did she leave him for… for him? Why did she love a man who had tried to kill her and his friends and him? Why did she love a man who would never even risk his life for hers or protect her if he was given the chance? Why did she love a mass murdering genocidal alien like him who exterminated millions of lives for a living? This man was far worse than Demon King Piccolo, just as terrible if not far more than the space tyrant that Goku had defeated.
Why?
Why?
"Why?"
Her face turned into expressions of grief and sorrow and fury, and it was directed at him, not the man who had taken the lives of his friends and nearly destroyed Earth. It was directed at him.
Bulma wasn't a fool. She did not gain the title of genius daughter for nothing. After all, she had made the Dragon Radar that her and her friends had virtually relied on.
She knew the looks she received from her parents when she mentioned him training, and she did not understand it herself. She knew the psychotic ass of a Saiyan Vegeta would bend her like a pretzel, snap her in two, blow her to pieces, or even kill her father and mother, but she was inexorably drawn to the man, drawn to the piercing cold, and dark violent gaze that held decades of battle and lust for bloodshed. Unlike Goku, whose complexion held a degree of softness and compassion even while he only thought about challenges, his was something that she could not even possibly ignore.
It contained cruelty, hatred, rage, despair, and sadness all in one. She shouldn't have cared about the man who would break himself just to surpass her childhood best friend or even kill him or her or even the rest of Earth. Even Krillin and her father asked her to leave him to his own devices, the former she knew he was alongside her at that moment when he blasted the monster of Frieza's henchmen called Zarbon through a pulpy explosion in his stomach. He was too dangerous, she was at the risk of being killed.
Yamcha had only stood there, and she should not blame him, should not be angry at him; the man she held in her arms, the partner of his, killed him, even if the technicality was the abominable green gremlins known as the Saibamen. It did not change a single thing, for all three, from what she remembered as he harshly bit back at her, killed him. The Saibamen was produced by both of them.
Yet she was, and she didn't want to be. Their relationship dwindled and she was drawn to the alien that killed him and wiped out populaces with a laugh and a smirk. He watched with only a cold gaze that she knew was what he still deserved, but that coldness from him made her only furious at his inactivity or lack of support.
At last, he moved forward. His own eyes were dark and furious as he glared down at the weakened Saiyan Prince in her arms. It would be easy to kill him now in his current state; it was an act of justice.
Bulma moved to stand in front of him; she did not understand why. She knew he should not help her or even care. But she did, her arms raised as he had held up a hand to possibly deliver a ki blast to wipe him from this world and into the next.
Why was she begging for him?
He wanted to tell her to move. He wanted to tell her to stand aside so he could deal with one of the threats to Earth. After all, they only had a mutual enemy in the form of two androids of a forgotten army, a claim made by a time traveling boy. Who was to say he wouldn't betray them? Who was to say he would even help them in their fight against the androids.
She did not. An almost faint plea escaped her lips as it parted slightly. "Yamcha… Please…"
Despite everything Yamcha was in the failure of their relationship between himself and Bulma, a cold blooded killer he was not. He would not take pleasure in his death, for it was for the benefit of Earth.
Yamcha moved automatically to support Vegeta. His own training and strength allowed him to carry the unconscious Saiyan prince with no difficulty or misstep.
In his own hazy mind, Yamcha wondered if this was how Goku had felt sparing the tyrant Frieza on Planet Namek. Sparing an individual who did not deserve to live, with untold, unaccountable, and remorseless crimes.
Yet he continued to move, Bulma right behind him. Any attempt at retribution or thoughts of it was now gone. He just wanted to leave and get it over with.
"Where's his room?"
Bulma flinched at the cold voice. "Yamcha-"
"Where's his room, Bulma? I'm not carrying him all night."
She directed him to follow her. Taking a left at a front door, it hissed open. Entering, he placed Vegeta down on the bed.
Immediately, IVs and medicine poured into his half naked body, the only sound of it was the soft beeping of the medicine, and Vegeta's grunts of pain.
Yamcha watched him silently, then turned around. His work was done. He had to hurry home. Puar would be concerned about him as she would tell him it was getting late.
"Yamcha?"
He turned around. Bulma's face was filled with gratefulness, a look of relief. "Thank you." She delivered it hesitantly however, as her face turned slightly with pain in her heart and guilt. "I…"
Yamcha simply shook his head. "I have to go now. Puar will get worried about me."
Bulma opened her mouth, then closed it once more. Her head hung and she nodded slightly. "Take… take care of yourself."
He barely managed to turn his gaze back to meet hers, before nodding. Then he quietly left the room. There was nothing to say anymore. Nothing to say of their relationship as it became clear now.
Yamcha quietly left Capsule Corp and flew off, back to his home once more, alone with no one but Puar to keep him company.