AN: This was supposed to be a one shot but became 10x the acceptable length of a one shot. Other 'chapters' are written and just getting polished, so the end is nigh. with all of my stories, I try to pin down and explore maybe one or two 'canon' facets of a character's personality, and in this one I really wanted to delve into that clammed up and easily embarrassed Vegeta. It's also, of all things, inspired by kdrama. And, finally, in case you didn't read the summary or didn't believe me, I just wanted to remind you that this can be very explicit. This has unashamed, offensive, dirty, raw...well, you know... Frankly, I just don't want to get any grief from anyone who isn't 100% on board. So please be warned, friends, and only indulge if you're willing to indulge. P.S And if you don't think this kind of sex is canon than I don't know what you're doing in this fandom. P.S.S. YAMCHA IS JUST A CONVENIENT FOIL GUYZ

Hunkered down in the center of a smoky bar in the thick of a Friday night, five Saiyans sat around a table, smoking the laced cigarettes and drinking the highly concentrated beer that classified them, doubtlessly, as Saiyan Special Forces.

Four men, one woman, a table crowded with empty bottles and picked over bar food, and one boiling topic:

"Is it true what they say about Earthling dicks?"

The laughter and din of the table simmered to curiosity as one of the soldiers leaned in, dragged deeply on a cigarette, and narrowed his eyes in confidence. "Hey, I've watched enough porn. They put my Oozaru form to shame. They're massive—"

Another Saiyan pointed the mouth of his beer bottle at his friend in disagreement. "Maybe your Oozaru form."

Scowl deepening in the chiaroscuro bar light, one of the Saiyan's eyes ticked away. Silent, motionless, the bar light slanted over his high cheekbones and sharp jaw but washed the rest of his face in shadows. His powerful arms were crossed over his breastplate, posture indicating—always indicating—that if they kept on like this, someone might die tonight.

The solitary woman at the table barked with laughter. It was a quintessentially Saiyan smile—spiteful, eager for blood and confident that she'd draw it—which curled her face. "No way. Look, it doesn't matter how big a man is." Her wrist jerked impertinently over her lap to mimic either male masturbation or what she thought of her colleague's intelligence. "It's how you use it. Besides, I read in Interstellar Cosmo that there's no difference in size between Saiyans and any other sophisticated primate."

The men drew on their cigarettes and popped unshelled peanuts in their mouths as they considered the worldly experience of their female battle buddy. Vegeta, however, stared at the table—the empty basket that once held onion rings, to be precise—with a mask of icy, black indifference.

"I'd bet you forty gil you're wrong," Raditz snorted, banging his beer on the table as he was overcome with certainty.

"Yeah, I bet an Earthling wrote that article," Nappa snickered.

"My package," Raditz continued, gesturing at his lap, "is living proof that Earthlings have nothing on Saiyans." His grin was toothy. "Certainly nothing on me."

"Hey, hey! It doesn't matter how big theirs are," Toma interrupted, a smirk clawing his face. "Mine's always hard, and that's what matters."

Fasha's eyebrow jerked up with impudent surprise."It wasn't last night."

There was a slap on the table of approval followed by hoots and hollers, and the man made a swipe at the woman with his fist, who leaned back smoothly to avoid it and promptly put her tongue in his mouth.

"Oh, come on, you're too old for this shit," Raditz bemoaned as his beer spilled with their antics. The table bawed and hissed with disapproval as she was pulled into Toma's lap for a sloppy and indecent kiss that could only be called, at least by Saiyan standards, warfare.

As the soldiers began throwing things at each other, laughing and proving themselves to be exactly the stereotype of beer-guzzling, rough-and-tumble Saiyans starting bar brawls across the galaxy, Vegeta sat, mute, brooding, staring sightlessly. Whether he was painfully bored or about to slaughter them all simply remained to be seen.

Only when another Saiyan approached them—a woman with the characteristically thick, short hair of female infantry and a snarl of a smile—did Vegeta look up with new intensity.

"I'm headed out," she informed them, grinning at the table's antics.

"See you Monday," they all called.

And were interrupted.

"Stay."

They blinked as a deep voice penetrated through the chaos. The din of the table was smothered as the five Saiyan soldiers stared at Vegeta with a mixture of shock...

And pity.

"Uh, we'll see you Monday at formation," Raditz interrupted, who stood, patting her on the shoulder roughly and turning her towards the door. The others followed suit, and Vegeta's eyes cast downward as she waved goodbye.

But once the bar door closed behind her, Vegeta stood abruptly.

The other soldier's mouths moved as if to stop him, but they watched helplessly instead.

Vegeta moved through the crowd like a knife through butter, smooth, assured. Despite his height—shorter than average for Saiyans, and even Earthlings—it wasn't difficult to become frozen with intimidation by the leader of the Saiyan Special Forces regiment. Sure, there was the red mark on his breastplate like a hand print smeared with blood, and which denoted his rank—his really, really high rank. There were the muscles bulging from the lean frame, the kind of carved musculature that Earthlings could only strive for through years of body building, biceps and round shoulders and robust pecs poking out just above his breast plate. It was in the fearless stride, the military smoothness commanding respect. The indifferent calm born only by standing in the thick of countless fire fights and certain death, and not just surviving, but thriving. It was, most definitely, the black glower below straight and forbidding brows and above a perfectly aristocratic nose and humorless mouth. Their fearless leader was a sight to behold since they'd been stationed on Earth for the planet's latest rotation around the goddamned perfectly healthy yellow sun of this solar system. Saiyans and Earthlings alike feared him, and even his elite squadron had an abundance of cautious respect for him. No one spoke to him unless spoken to, no one joked around directly with him, and certainly, no one tried to give him dating advice.

Slipping through the crowded streets without tearing his gaze from the Saiyan, with enough space between them that she wouldn't suspect she was being followed, Vegeta stalked silently.

As he hit the intersection, he stalled, blowing air sharply through his nose, agitated with himself for his behavior. He was torn between calling her name and forcing her to face him, or taking off in the opposite direction and saving face.

His chance disappeared when she abruptly opened the passenger door of a hovercar on the side of the street, turning to slide in with a smile. Vegeta's gaze drew to the driver's side of the car, where an Earthling man stood with an idiotic grin directed at his prize, before he slid in behind the wheel.

The city lights and sounds bled together as Vegeta watched them pull away.

...

"You all knew?"

The table full of ruthless Saiyans looked down at the table and into their drinks sheepishly.

The female soldier tucked her hair behind her ear self-consciously, and Raditz' throat bobbed as he worked up the courage to confront a man that was hated passionately for being a hardass but never, ever called that to his face.

"She asked us not to tell you," Fasha finally said, with a slip of an emotion left unsaid, something that sounded an awful lot like concern for Vegeta's mental health.

"I was going to tell you," the brawny Nappa muttered into his pint. "Just, later."

Vegeta leaned back into his chair and put his boots on the table. The others watched him warily, swallowing, knowing quite well that his casual posture was anything but an indication that they wouldn't soon be a smoking pile of ash.

"You pity me."

The table cast meek glances down, and Vegeta stood suddenly, disgust and embarrassment screwing his face as he turned to leave. "You're all worthless," he muttered through his teeth.

The table shrunk further into their seats.

All except Raditz, who ground his teeth, and then mumbled, "At least I have a sex life."

With a strobe of blue ki and an answering roar, Vegeta flipped their table with a swipe of his palms, sending it careening into the wall, through plaster and brick and into the street, and causing shattered glass to spray like confetti over the screaming passersby on the sidewalk.

For the elite Saiyan special forces unit, it was just another Friday night on Earth.

…

The alert on his scouter beeped.

And beeped.

And beeped.

Vegeta willed it to shut up.

And beeped.

And beeped again.

With a muffled groan, Vegeta attempted to roll off the couch in his apartment and instead landed gracelessly on his forearms on the rug. He kicked the blanket wrapped around his ankles a few times before it released him and sleepily swatted at his scouter. He sent the signal to his phone on the third attempt with his eyes still screwed closed, but then glowered when the phone began ringing, too.

He grabbed for his phone, digging his palm miserably into his forehead in his quiet, lonely hole of an apartment on this unfortunate side of the universe.

Vegeta realized he was still drunk when he didn't answer with his usual brute and clipped "WHAT" and just grunted. Who knew the bottle of liquor that Toma had brought him as a housewarming gift over a year ago would come in so handy? Vegeta just might not kill him tomorrow.

"Shh," a feminine voice answered. "Don't say anything. Just do exactly what I tell you to do."

Vegeta shoved himself into a sitting position with his back against the couch and blinked at the ceiling. He glanced at his scouter, squinted with confusion, and then ran his heavy hand through the flame of his hair.

"Good boy. You might hear something when I talk. It's the splash of water, because I'm in the bathtub. There are bubbles all over my naked skin."

Vegeta's eyes flew open.

"I like the way the water feels, warm and sliding over my skin...but I love it even more when I open my legs."

Vegeta sat forward abruptly, his eyes widening with shock. He opened his mouth to unleash a scathing reprimand of whoever was on the other line—and it started with a supremely noble croak that didn't seem to be forming words—but she interrupted him.

"I told you not to talk," she chastised him firmly. "Now, I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm doing." The woman's voice was breathy. "I'm holding the phone in my left hand. My right hand is sliding over my breasts. My nipples are already puckering. I'm running my fingers over them, and it's making them harder. Mm, I like when they get perky, ready to be licked. But now my hand is moving down my belly, sliding between my legs. I'm so soft and wet already, even in the water. It feels so good," she groaned. "I want you to take your cock out, and rub yours, too."

Vegeta bolted to his feet and rapidly yanked all the blinds closed. The crimson blush that had begun its creep up his face was now visible even in the dark. Then he jerked back and forth, looking about frantically, uncertainly, to make sure no one else was hearing this, maybe, or for some kind of weapon that could breach time and space.

"Did you get it out? Unzip your pants and close your fist around it. Squeeze it for me and hold it firmly. I want you to get it ready, because I'm going to put my mouth on it."

Vegeta sank into the couch, gaping.

"I'm going to put my mouth around it very softly. You're going to feel my tongue first, slowly slide around the tip of you. My tongue's curling around your head, licking up the slit. Now I'm going to slide my mouth down and suck it all the way in."

He grabbed his rebelliously hardening crotch as if to shut it up.

She moaned. "I want every inch in my mouth until you hit the back of my throat," she explained with anticipation.

He could hear water splashing rhythmically in the background, and realizing what it indicated, Vegeta went rock hard so quickly he became light headed. His jaw tightened with chomping, embarrassed fury, and also with the struggle to hold back his own growing need.

There was another moan, more sloshing water, and then a needy whine, until the voice on the other side told him huskily, "When you cum, I want to eat it. I want you to unload it in my mouth."

Vegeta unzipped his pants rapidly and grabbed for some tissues from the box on the living room table.

With the rhythm of the woman's own urgent moans and soft splashes, the lone plant atop the coffee table began to rock back and forth as he put his feet on the table and followed suit.

"Do you hear the splashing getting faster? I'm slipping my fingers in now, thinking of your cock hitting the back of my throat. I think," the voice keened, "I'm going to cum."

Vegeta threw his head back and pumped his dick as the cries and the chime of water quickened, and staring up at his ceiling, for the first time since arriving on Earth, Vegeta enjoyed himself with single-minded, selfish pleasure.

…

A hand wrung a washcloth into a bathtub, legs folded on the bathroom floor, sullenly swishing the water about with her fingertips as the other hand pressed a pink walky talky to her mouth. "I think I'm going to come!" She moaned louder as she clinically wrang out a washcloth into the empty tub again.

Bulma let out another dramatic moan, shifting her hips as her leg prickled numbly from sitting, but her hand slipped on the wet floor and she tumbled backward, cracking her head on the side of the toilet. She cried out sharply in pain, clutching her head as distantly the sound of a man's heavy breathing became jagged and then hissed to completion. She moaned with pain, long and low and frustrated, holding the back of her skull on the tile floor, the cold, spilled water soaking into her pajama bottoms.

Bulma's own breath exhaled with force through her teeth as she struggled to sit up on the wet floor, holding the back of her head peevishly.

And then she flipped her bangs out of her face and smiled. "Honey?" She pressed the walky talky to her ear. "Was it good? Did I do okay?"

"It was okay," a man managed roughly. "Who is this?"

Bulma Briefs went rigid.

She paled. "Who is this!?"

She held the walky talky away from her face and checked the coordinates on the dial. "01-597-89," she mouthed silently.

Her heart galloped in her chest, feeling light headed. Was the room spinning? "Eight nine?" She thumbed off the connection with the stranger and looked at the walky talky in horror. "Nine?!"

Panicking, she turned the transmission back on and dialed the correct number, this time very carefully.

"Hello?" Answered a sleepy male voice.

"Honey?" Bulma asked with disbelief.

"What?"

"Hey, have you...did you...were you asleep?"

"Yeah." The mumble took a lot of effort. "I worked late. Why?"

"Well, your number is 01-597-85," she explained rapidly, "five, not nine, and I built this walky talky tonight and was trying it out and I'm not saying I don't know what I'm doing jumping signals like this but I might have dialed the wrong—"

"Bulma?"

Bulma stopped pacing. "Yes, Yamcha?"

"I have to go to work early. Like, in a few hours. Get it? We'll talk about this tomorrow."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay." Her hand nervously grazed the clutter on her makeup stand, picking a teddy bear up and putting it back down again. "You remember our date tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah." A yawn interrupted him. "Look pretty for me."

Bulma beamed at the calendar, marked with a heart. "I always do. See you then."

He hung up before she even had the chance to slide the 'end transmission' lever down.

She scowled down at the troublesome communication device before falling into her kitchen chair.

Bulma took a moment to just let it sink in, staring at the opposite wall. Her mouth parted inch by inch in increasing surprise and mortification as she realized the thing she'd just done with a stranger.

"Oh. My. GOD," she yelled, throwing her arms in the air, before pillowing her head in them and groaning, swatting this month's issue of Interstellar Cosmo, "10 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life," off the kitchen table resentfully.

…

"Phone sex?" Chi Chi screeched, bobbing baby Gohan around in his front carrier. "With a stranger?"

Eighteen watched Bulma with renewed interest, culling through the bras on the clothes rack.

"It's not exactly phone sex," Bulma argued, "if it wasn't with the right person. And I didn't enjoy it."

Eighteen's lips slanted. "There's nothing wrong with phone sex," she said.

"It's not like that," Bulma snapped, snatching up push up bras from the rack like her life depended on it.

ChiChi bounced Gohan and rattled a toy in front of his face. "So do you think he'll ask tonight?"

Eighteen glanced up, hair coming undone from behind her ear and sliding sleekly over one eye. "It's your five year, isn't it?"

Bulma squared her jaw and closed the fitting room curtain with a yank.

"Don't do it," ChiChi warned, waving the rattle angrily. "As soon as you're married, your sex life dies. I wouldn't recommend marriage on my worst enemy."

"Don't talk about sex in front of the baby," Eighteen admonished her, clapping her hands over the infant's ears, restrained against his mother's chest. The baby just smiled toothlessly.

"First goes the sex positions," ChiChi announced loudly. "Then the number of times you have sex a week. Suddenly he finds porn more interesting and your heart is shriveling up in your chest." ChiChi clutched her chest dramatically.

"Just because Yamcha and I don't have sex very often doesn't mean it affects how we feel about each other," Bulma claimed from the other side of the curtain.

The two women outside the curtain shared a look. They both knew Bulma and Yamcha's relationship had been suffering. Emotionally. Intimately. Amusingly. For years.

"Look," Eighteen tried. "It's not about the sex." She shot ChiChi a look. "It's about communication." She held her hands out palms up. "You have to tell each other what you want. You have to be responsive to each other's needs—"

"If your vagina gets bored, so will your heart." ChiChi interrupted.

Bulma sighed, cinching up the last hook and eye on a cream colored corset before staring at herself in the mirror. "Today is our 5th anniversary. He can't remember anything, not my birthday, not trash day. The man would forget to buy Christmas presents if people weren't shouting 'Merry Christmas' from the rooftops for weeks on end." She glowered, fluffing her short hair. "But he made reservations tonight," she contended, face transforming into a mask of determination. With the need to believe. "You know what that means?"

She whipped back the curtains.

"Proposal!" Chi Chi squealed.

"Proposal?" Eighteen asked, an eyebrow arching.

Bulma beamed with renewed resolve, drawing the eyes of other customers as her decolletage nearly spilled from the corset, panties stretched within an inch of their life across her hips.

"Proposal," she affirmed.

…

Bulma stared at the jeweler's box on the table with a barely suppressible grin as Yamcha paced outside the restaurant windows, talking on his phone.

Work. Always work with him. Work, work, work. But tonight she didn't have the energy to spare on the chronic frustration and embittered neglect that she had evidently signed on for when her mother had set them up years ago.

A long-legged waiter jerked to a halt beside her, putting his hand to his mouth as if to stifle a gasp and staring moonily down at the jewelry box.

He looked at her with shock. "Is that what I think it is?"

Bulma nodded with enthusiasm. "I think so. At least, it better be, or I might have to murder him." Her grin was so wide her eyes scrunched.

"Today is a very special day," the waiter confirmed, and he winked at her before sashaying away.

Bulma could hardly suppress the nervous giggles that were building inside her.

Yamcha finally called and slid into his seat. He saw her gaze, grabbed the box, and hefted it a few times as if testing the weight of it.

Bulma's eyes followed it hungrily.

He smirked, jerking it back and forth playfully, left, right, left, right, up down as her eyes dragged back and forth like a fish caught on a hook.

Bulma ripped her gaze away and clapped her hands together, radiating excitement. "To be honest, I was going to be awfully mad if you didn't do it tonight."

"Oh, yeah?" Yamcha laughed. He was debonair in the ambient light of the restaurant, with straight white teeth and short, gelled hair. Tall and broad shouldered. "It's our five year anniversary. And you know since I have to cut our night short and head back to work soon that I had to bring my girl a special gift. Go ahead." He nodded graciously at the box. "Open it."

Bulma squealed and tore off the ribbon, popping the lid open in an instant.

"Surprise!" The waiter hollered, throwing confetti over their heads, watching the stuff shimmy, ripple, and rain down on the couple and hoping the act earned him a big tip from the woman of the hour.

Bulma stared down at the open jewelry box with bewilderment.

It was a jeweled hair clip.

Bulma squinted, trying to understand.

A hair clip.

She cringed, slowly, painfully, her slender pale fingers still holding the jewelry box reverently. As the gold and silver confetti scintillated in the light and settled around them, Bulma blinked, first at the hair clip in the box, and then at the waiter, who was growing increasingly pale.

And then at Yamcha, who was preoccupied, sending a text on his phone.

The hair clip shivered in her vision as her eyes filled with wet heat.

"Thank you," was all she said.

…

Earth had a saying, something about Monday's not being fun days. Vegeta didn't care to know it, but still, today it resonated with him. In fact, he might just strangle the next Saiyan who happily mentioned the day of the week, because Vegeta had had a horrible weekend, and the beginning of this work week wasn't looking any better.

It had started with a breakup—a word that Vegeta bristled at, because it implied he had relationships at all—by someone who had told him in a round about way that she found him boring. Despite that he had never cared about anything except power, rank, and control, those very things that made Saiyans worth a shit in the eyes of others and that he had acquired and gloated about with obnoxious pride, it was the truth of his feelings, or mostly that he had feelings, which rankled him. So that was something Vegeta was quickly burying six feet under the ground of his subconscious as he told himself over and over again that it was the simply fact that someone rejected him that bothered him so.

Saiyans were fearless, after all; they weren't just competitive, but eager to look death in the eye and then drag someone there. To be Saiyan didn't necessarily imply just being a soldier, because no other race in the universe had quite as much fun doing it. Vegeta also had the advantage of being really, really powerful. Waving a little device that rated ki energy, the doctor that had delivered Vegeta from his mother's womb had gaped and stammered, unable to form the numbers with his mouth. Vegeta had the privilege of having the highest power level of any known Saiyan. And then, with every victory in battle, the tangible proof of his perfection grew higher and higher. He was also ambitious, preening with accomplishment as he smoothly jumped every hurdle in his life with smug finesse. He was the best of the best, and that's why this morning when his boss had told him that he would have to stay longer on Earth, a kind of isolation that they only imposed on the truly stupidest of Saiyans, he'd felt the world sway with uncertainty.

Then, once the woman he had uncomfortably had what might or might not have been a "relationship" with had slid into the car of an Earthling—a helpless Earthling—Vegeta had done something he hadn't done in a very long time. He had gotten very drunk. And then, when some woman had called him moaning into the receiver, he'd given in, grabbed a tissue with premeditated intent, and blown his load. Truly, he was the height of third class sensibility these days.

It was Monday, and Vegeta really, truly felt like he was going to force someone face first into an early grave by the end of the night.

At least, he hoped so.

...

Bulma's head popped up from the hull of the star ship. A red handkerchief was knotted atop her head to keep her hair out of her eyes, sliding back her goggles on her forehead and regarding the women she worked with with wide, blue eyes.

"You're making fun of me."

"Noooo. No!" The women laughed, turning wrenches familiarly.

Bulma sulked. "You think this is funny."

One of the women glanced up enthusiastically. "Did he sound hot, at least?"

Bulma felt the weight of the walky talky in her jumpsuit pocket, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her glove and frowning. "He sounded bored," she complained.

"Did he get off?" Another woman asked her excitedly. Someone gasped, putting her hand to her mouth in giddy embarrassment at the question.

Bulma blushed, leaning down to grab a rubber mallet and somehow smacking her head against the metal wall of the star ship. She rubbed her head sheepishly, lips mouthing ow. "I think so."

"So you were good, right?"

Bulma wasn't amused.

"Look at it this way: you gave some guy a great time out of the goodness of your heart. Good deed done for the week."

The other women chorused in agreement before laughing.

Another woman's eyebrow head shot up from under her own star ship. "Hey, did your man pop the question this weekend?"

The other women stopped what they were doing and turned to Bulma.

Bulma looked down, but not quick enough, not quick enough to hide the pained look of disappointment. But her ears burned red with anger. "What man?" She began hammered loudly. Forcefully. "I'd rather talk about the stranger I had phone sex with," she muttered through her clenched teeth. "At least he can get it up."

And then she rested her head against the cold hull of the star ship in a humiliation she doubted she'd ever live down.

…

"Women are bitches," Raditz was yammering beside him.

"Don't be like that, you know he's hurting," Fasha chided.

"Yeah, well, I'm trying to make him feel better," Raditz snapped.

Vegeta rolled his eyes and downed another shot. Vegeta didn't always indulge—in fact, he never indulged—but when he did, as he was doing more often, he did it with one intention:

Face planting into sweet black oblivion on the cold bar floor.

"They're pscyhopaths," Raditz cried defensively, arguing with his female battle buddy. "You do one thing wrong and they go crazy. 'Oh, you got a stiffy for another woman, now you deserve to die.'" Raditz scoffed. "And when you're dating them, they're animals, scenting for weakness." He smelled Fasha dramatically. She batted him away. "They just want to tame you and break you like a wild stallion. Women are all the same. It's better to be realistic about this." Raditz nodded in agreement with himself sloppily. Realism was a very Saiyan trait, and realistically, Raditz was quite drunk.

Nappa picked up where Raditz had trailed off. "This is how I see it. If they're not Saiyan and defending my back in battle, they're all just things to slip myself into." He knocked his glass on the bar with feeling. "That's how I stay sane. Just treating everyone like a fuck. Could you imagine what it'd be like if I actually cared? My money'd be gone, and my dick would be limp."

"You're a warrior, sir," Raditz continued, head hanging heavily over his pint and inching closer and closer to the counter top. "That's what we are: cold blooded, ruthless, cool as fuck Saiyans. We're good at killing things, sleeping, eating." He counted his fingers, then hiccuped. "Fucking."

Nappa nodded.

"But she can't expect more from you," he argued belligerently with his eyes closed. "You're a Saiyan. You're not a, a, a settling down type..."

"If you don't have more time to pretend like you care, then who is she to complain?" Nappa was full of advice tonight. Bad advice, but advice nonetheless. "She's barely an elite, that's what I say."

His female soldier leaned back to look at him sympathetically, eyes glazed, several shots in. "Captain, you're a...a..." Her eyes squinted with concentration as she tried to find a compliment that suited a man like Vegeta. "A hard working guy. Don't let her get you down."

"I guess it's time for you to indulge in the locals," Nappa laughed.

"To test their cock size?"

By now the three Saiyans were too blitzed to remember to watch their mouths around this particularly prickly—and higher ranking—Saiyan.

"Vegeta needs to get laid. Like, laid. He's not going to get a good hard lay from an Earthling."

"Fuck I hate you guys," Vegeta muttered, glaring down at his drink.

Vegeta fisted the glass and swallowed its contents in one gulp.

…

The cops had been called after Nappa had thrown a Ts'ingosoldier through the front window and started an all out brawl. Nappa didn't much like Ts'ingos, alleging that one had bungled a mission in the heat of a fire fight and he'd never let another one drink in peace again.

Vegeta had claimed responsibility disjointedly. He'd talked the police out of pressing charges with a professional coolness that he didn't feel, bailed his team out of jail—again (if they weren't worth their weight in gold in a fight than he'd have personally sent them all to Hell by now)—and then Vegeta fell into a taxi.

He stepped out of the taxi, surveyed the street.

In his hands he twiddled his scouter.

And put in coordinates.

His thumb hesitated over the dial, and for a minute he just stared at the innocuous arrangement of numbers that hadn't yet been deleted from his list.

Vegeta's stomach was churning, and he leaned against the brick wall heavily.

But rather than hitting 'dial out,' he went instead to his recent incoming calls and scrolled down the list.

The contents of his stomach threatened to erupt from his belly, but he tamped it down aggressively. He was a man to whom nothing happened to without his permission. Not even involuntary bodily functions.

Nothing except one thing, by one woman.

He was looking for one number in particular.

…

Upbeat music from the radio blared, shot glasses filled with liquor lined up neatly beside the am/fm on the makeup desk. Bulma danced with the kind of lack of inhibition of someone half-drunk and alone. Hopping up and down in her bare feet and singing into her brush, her short hair swinging from side to side with her enthusiasm, Bulma was free to be herself. She spent many Friday nights like this. Alone.

Then she threw herself onto her bed on her back, the warm fuzz of the alcohol languidly settling around her.

She was scowling at the ceiling when something vibrated under the small of her back.

Clutching underneath her and fumbling, her hands closed around the walky talky. She thumbed the talk button sulkily.

"Hello?"

"You," came a gravelly, low accusation.

She bolted up in bed with a gasp, pointer finger rising imperiously. "You!" A frown deepened on her face. "This is the guy from last night!" She chuffed with the indignity. "You're a dirty, dirty pervert, you, you pervert! I hope you're happy with your free show!" She smashed the end button down and tossed the walky talky behind her, where it clattered to the floor.

Her carpet began vibrating loudly, and eyes blazing, she leaped off the bed to answer it, forgetting the resolution to never think of the phone sex incident again that she'd made half a second ago. She squared her shoulders but wasn't able to threaten hellfire and damnation as planned before he'd interrupted.

"I'm the pervert? You're the one who called me!"

"I am not a pervert, I am a polite young lady who thought she dialed her boyfriend's number!" Bulma sat heavily on the edge of her bed. "And it's not like, god forbid, you tried to stop me!"

"I should report you for sexual harassment!"

She gaped. "I should report you!"

"I have the whole conversation recorded." He was was loud and self-righteous. "Available to anyone. The police...your boyfriend. Who'd believe I was the one who forced you?"

A strangled sound escaped from Bulma's throat. "You wouldn't!" She struggled to put her fury into eloquent words. Found them. "You are so mean!"

"I can be very mean," he snarled, stalking through an alley, listing only slightly and catching himself on the brick wall with his hand.

"Why?" She pleaded, running her hand over her face with exasperation. "Why are you calling me? It was an accident, and I'm sorry," she whined. "I won't bother you again."

"No." Vegeta halted in his tracks, suddenly solemn. "No, I'm sorry."

Bulma blinked. "Sorry for what?"

"For calling you just to start an argument. I shouldn't lose control like that..."

There was something rough and buried in his voice, something...insecure? Something...hurt.

"Is there something wrong?" Bulma asked tentatively.

"I'm just terrible at this stuff." The man's voice dipped, smooth for a moment, and then catching like velvet over gravel. "At...feelings..."

Bulma looked down at the jewelry box that she'd threw in her trashcan just to spite it. "Yeah, me, too."

"I'm not good at anything but work." Or killing things, to be precise, he thought. "That's what my...ex...says, anyway."

"I think most people worry about that every now and then," she told him encouragingly, before leaning over and palming one of the still full shot glasses. "It's easy to get wrapped up in the day in day out of your job." Her voice became hard. "And then neglect the people you care about." And slammed it, thinking of Yamcha again.

"I'm very good at what I do." There was a sigh. "I'm a very important person."

She snorted wryly. He didn't run short on praise for himself, did he? "Well, look. You work hard. That's nothing to be ashamed of." Bulma twirled the edge of the sheet around her finger. "Your...ex. She didn't like how often you worked?"

Vegeta ran his hand over his face, smothering another sigh, and started shuffling out of the alley to his apartment complex.

"I didn't have time for a relationship," he conceded. "I should have been...more nice. She was nice to me. She's a hard worker. She's...not bad looking."

Bulma stumbled over his choice in compliments. "Well, how about this," Bulma offered. "Don't think about what made her so great. Or all the good times you might have had. What about the bad things?" Bulma slapped an unhappy smiley face sticker over Yamcha's face in one of the photos that stood on her nightstand. "What about the things that pissed you off?" Because that's what she was in the mood to bitch about.

Vegeta opened the door to his building with a frown. "I don't like being underestimated."

"Good!" She quipped in camaraderie. "I'll go next. I don't like being unappreciated."

"I'm in control all of the time. They let loose, but I can't. I have to be someone they can look up to and depend on."

"He never calls me just to talk anymore. We never talk. We never hang out. It's like we're not even together. It's so lonely."

"I can't enjoy being around them, and they punish me for it. By saying 'hi' in the morning." Vegeta narrowed his eyes. "Inviting me out to have fun..."

"It's been so long since someone besides myself has made me cum," she admitted, sighing.

Vegeta snorted enthusiastically in agreement.

"And honestly..." Bulma sighed self-deprecatingly, holding out a shot glass dramatically and letting slip a secret she'd been hiding from even her closest friends. "He doesn't...he doesn't go down on me. He thinks it's gross."

"That's a fucking shame." The stranger said it with grim seriousness.

Her fingers curled around the walky talky, and she rolled onto her stomach. "Don't you have someone on the side, at least?"

She was met with silence.

"...No," he finally admitted.

"You don't have anyone to..." Bulma cleared her throat. And bit her lip slowly. "Someone to take the edge off without strings attached? Anyone to put their mouth around it," her voice dipped huskily, uncertainly, "when you're feeling stressed?"

Vegeta stumbled as he made his way up the stairs to his apartment. The key slid into the doorknob with a protest, and it creaked open to reveal a sparse living room.

He steadied himself as he shut the door behind him. "No," he finally answered self-consciously. "I don't go looking for relationships like that... I'm too busy. And I don't...socialize."

Bulma fell back into her bed on her back, the walky talky resting delicately against her lips. The room spun a little.

"Do you...like it? When a woman gives you head?"

Bulma waited uncertainly, the silence stretching on for long enough that she wondered if she had crossed a line and been hung up on.

"Yes," the stranger finally answered, with a hint of unease.

"I like to do it," she confided softly, gazing up at the ceiling with her hand clasping the walky talky, the smooth plastic suddenly sensual in her palm. "Put it in my mouth, I mean. I just...genuinely like the taste of it, kind of worshiping it. Feeling like I'm in control, winning. Did your ex like to go down on you?"

Vegeta felt his face heat. Suddenly his apartment walls felt too thin, and he found himself wondering if his neighbors could hear them. "She didn't like to. She did...once." The admission was like pulling teeth. But there was something harmless about confiding it in the dark to a disembodied voice. "She didn't want to swallow, and she obviously wasn't enjoying it. ...I couldn't cum." Vegeta's face flushed. He fell onto his couch, throwing his arm heavily behind him to rest on the arm of the couch.

Tender curiosity tugged her forward. "Well, was the sex good, at least? You could cum then, right?"

"No. I..." He cleared his throat. His skin felt too tight, itchy. "First time in a long time." Vegeta's eyes slid sideways. "Completion, I mean."

Bulma's eyes widened, and she turned on her side. "Did you like it?" She whispered into the receiver with excitement. "I mean, my call last night. Was it any good?"

Vegeta stared up at the ceiling from the couch wearily, put his arm over his forehead, and blinked. "Yes," he finally answered.

His tone was flat, even resentful.

But the answer bolted like lightning through him.

Bulma smiled secretively, and she rolled on her bed with a quick burst of happiness. "Good. Good night, stranger."