Chapter Six
"VEGETA! OH KAMI I MISSED YOU!"
"Bulma?"
"Vegeta! Oh, I'm so happy to see you! Are you happy to see me?"
Vegeta's face turned red.
"Oh, come on. Vegeta, aren't you even a little happy?"
"Uhh...errr...oh damn, I just don't understand everything..."
"Vegeta? What do you mean?"
"Well, your little friends don't even know about this, your father hates it, your mother is more than a little confused, and I don't know which way to go. You saw what we got for loving eachother. I've discovered that love can be absolutely wicked. It's great while you're not paying attention to the conciquenses, but the after-effects are stressful and they tend to blow up in my face. I guess if you want to love someone, you have to have a reputation of being loveable, like that disgusting Kakkarott...I guess you have to be everyone's favorite hero to have a mate..."
"Vegeta...you know I love you...We'll probably never really be totally together, but I'll always love you secretly, if not openly eventually. Cheer up, and let's get down to business."
"That's the only good thing I've heard in a long time. Heh heh."
Again, the rest is history for about three hours.
When Bulma didn't return to her designated side of CC for quite a while, Dr. Briefs got a little upset. He almost decided to go check on her, but suddenly decided against it. He knew it would just blow her fuse for good and she would probably never talk to him again. He waited...and waited...and waited until it was almost evening. He was getting worried, what if that monster had gotten mad, or overly emotional, or what if they were making out again? Bulma wouldn't...she would probably be scared of the same fate she received the last time she fooled around, he thought.
Alas, poor Dr. Briefs was wrong. Bulma and Vegeta had actually had three straight hours of nonstop action, and Bulma was getting pretty worn.
"Don't you ever get tired, Vegeta?"
"Are you kidding? Me? Get tired of this? Yeah, right. When Kakkarott dies and goes to Hell I'll get tired of this."
"Oh egad, Vegeta... OK, stop now. Dad's going to blow his top if he finds out about this...and that shape-shifting slimeball Oolong better not find out, either. I've got to go now, Vegeta, ummm...I might see you later."
"But, Bulma..."
"I know. Bye for now, though."
Bulma returned to where her father had been standing for a long, long time. He was tapping his foot and had his arms crossed. He reminds me of Vegeta when he does that, thought Bulma, but then again, all I think about is Vegeta these days.
"Bulma, what have you been doing over there?"
"None of your business, Dad."
"Oh, really? Just how frisky did you get? Was there any use of a bed?"
"DAD! Do you know how much you hurt his feelings? He doesn't show anyone how he feels, but I can see it in his eyes. He's even beginning to think that love is cruel, because he can't love anyone without being punished. You're treating him like he's committed a damn crime, for crying out loud! I am going to go back in there, bring him out, and invite him to stay the night at my living quarters, for tonight, until he can compose himself and we can figure something out. Got that? Good, because I don't care what you say, IT'S HAPPENING!"
"Bulma..."
"Don't Bulma me, Dad. Goodbye for the evening!"
With that, Bulma slammed the door to the room they were in right in her father's face. He sighed and headed for his little house.
"VEGETA! YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH ME TONIGHT!!!" Bulma yelled in to the other side of the building.
Vegeta came running. "What the hell did you say to him to make him shut up?" Vegeta asked, referring to Dr. Briefs.
"I didn't ask him, I just told him that he couldn't do anything about it and that was that."
"Hmm, maybe humans do have some little rubbery nerves."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you've got nerves of titanium, right, oh great Prince?"
"Titanium? What the hell is that? I was thinking more along the lines of steel."
"((sigh)) Let's just go to my room."
As Vegeta entered Bulma's apartment, he noticed that things weren't quite as neat and tidy as they were the last time he came. Things were strewn across the floor, the couch had a pillow and blanket lopped across it, there were socks on the TV which was in front of the couch, and when he looked through the pass-trough in the divider to the kitchen, he found that no clean dishes were in sight, everything was dirty.
Bulma sighed again as she entered her run-down room. She noticed Vegeta looked just a little surprised, but he was trying not to show it. Bulma knew that for everyone else, he was forever either wearing his mask of no emotion or his mask of anger, but Bulma noticed the tiny twitches and almost non-existent shows of some other emotion, from surprise to sadness to actually happy (this was the most rare, and she had only caught it once: at the forest gathering kiss).
She used to think the same thing about him as everyone else did, and she thought that his seemingly endless stock of bland, emotionless looks was frightening and entruiging at the same time. However, still to that day, she had to concentrate extremely hard on Vegeta to catch his flickers of emotion. It was becoming a little easier, but not much. She worked so hard on it because she always wanted to know exactly how he was feeling.
Back to the present. Bulma noticed that Vegeta was a little surprised, because his dark eyebrows had raised about a half a millimeter, and he was actually concentrating on something other than being arrogant.
"I know it's messy, I've just been…sort of out of it these past weeks. We probably wouldn't have done anything if you had stayed near me either, but it was just the fact of knowing that we had that option, I guess," Bulma told Vegeta. He grunted in approval.
"So, Vegeta-chan, what did you do all those days?"
Vegeta blushed extremely bright red at the use of chan on his name, and growled a little before answering, "The gravity room."
"And where did you sleep?"
"The gravity room."
"WHAT?"
"It was the only non-civilized place around."
"What about your room?"
"That was on your side of the building."
Bulma then went into the bedroom and motioned Vegeta to follow. "Come on Vegeta, what are you scared?"
Again, Vegeta had on his bright-red face at being called scaredy by a little Earth woman. "I am not scared, woman, so don't suggest it again!"
"Fine…wow, Vegeta, you're really stressed out tonight…" Bulma told him, a worried look on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, what the hell makes you think that?"
"I can see it in your eyes," Bulma told him. His expression deepened then, and he knew that Bulma was becoming too familiar with him for him to lie about how he felt. He now knew that Bulma could read his hidden expressions like signposts. He knew that their relationship was pretty deep now.
"I…I…it's just that…" Vegeta tried to say, but he never was any good at sentimental words, except when teasing his enemy and being sarcastic.
"Vegeta, come here to this bed right now," Bulma ordered. To her surprise, he did just that on her command. "Now try to tell me what's eating on you."
"Who's eating what??" Vegeta asked.
"Arrgh! I mean, what's bothering you?"
"Oh…well…umm…I…" Vegeta stuttered some more. Bulma was a little shocked, this was way way beyond anything Vegeta had ever done in the sentiment department, and she knew if it was bothering him to this extent, there was something that he thought was very wrong.
"Maybe this will loosen your lips, Vege-chan," Bulma said, just before putting her lips on his and presenting him with a long, relaxing kiss.
"Oh, Bulma," Vegeta purred. Bulma knew that had gotten him in the mood.
"I know, I love you too, Vege-chan," Bulma told him. And boy, did she ever mean it.
"Good, because I won't be leaving for a while" Vegeta said, and Bulma hugged him tightly. It was then that they both felt their tie to eachother. They were more obsessed with eachother then they had been obsessed with anyone else in their whole lives.
"Oh, Vegeta, I love you so much. Oooo, that feels good right there..."
Vegeta didn't say a word. He just kept kissing Bulma's ear. After around another half and hour of just playing around and talking, both were emotionally tired and relaxed back into the bed.
"Vege-chan, tell me what's wrong."
Vegeta sighed a long sigh. "It's like this, Bulma. I feel so out of place here, whenever I come around all of your little friends stare at me like I was...well...from outer space. No one shares any of my opinions about anything that goes on, and while I don't care on the outside at all, somewhere it just keeps gnawing on me that I'm totally out of place. I don't really want to hang around with them either, but there's no one I can relate to anywhere. In the whole universe. You're the only one who can force it out of me, and I think that's changing me more than I'm used to. I know I look mean, and alot of the time I really am mean, in real life. I don't think twice about it. And I'm not thinking twice about it now, either. They're just all so different from me…even you, Bulma."
"Oh, Vegeta…"
Vegeta hushed her. "You shouldn't worry about a tough guy like me, woman. You have enough to worry about with that bratty father of yours. Go to sleep, I'll see you in the morning."
"Whatever you say, Vege-chan. Goodnight."
"Umm…goodnight, Bulma."
Vegeta knew that for once in his life, he too was tired. He curled around Bulma, and upon hearing her little noise of delight, Vegeta closed his eyes.