Chapter Text
Frieza’s slimy tail locked around his neck, tightening in a painful way. Yet, he wouldn’t let that oozy shit enjoy his death much. Vegeta managed to wriggle his neck enough to lower his head, biting into the tail. Frieza flinched and groaned in pain, but instead of letting him go, he tightened even more.
Even then, he didn’t touch it – it would seem like a desperate move, almost begging for him to let go.
Vegeta grunted. His eyes scanned the puny planet Namek, seeking Kakarot or the green-one. What he saw, however, was a pile of dead bodies. Kakarot’s child was on the top of it, but he could see the bald-one, Kakarot, Piccolo and the woman.
“Give up, stupid Saiyan,” he hissed. “You could never win.”
That made Vegeta’s breath shortened. He could blow Frieza’s tail – even if it fried his face in the process. He’d rather die with the knowledge he was at least taking the tyrant with him. But that wasn’t enough. If he could twist just a bit, he could perhaps blast him on his chest, or face.
“Watch that,” he chuckled. “All of those died, just like your stupid planet. Just like your King father. And just like… you.”
His pointy nails made contact with the hole on his armour before he could move; right on top of the bleeding part. With a hiss, Vegeta moved again, to get away from that. Frieza's dark nails dug deeper, breaking through his skin and muscles.
“I will always find you,” Frieza muttered.
Vegeta screamed as he blasted his body into pieces.
----x----
Bulma eyed the Training Capsule buzzing, brows furrowed.
Early that morning – earlier than the sunrise – she woke up with Vegeta screaming. Luckily, her parents were on the opposite wing of the house, making her the sole spectator of his nightmares. It had been a bit sparser since he moved to Capsule Corp almost seven months before; but every now and then, he had those.
She leaned back on her chair, pulling a pen to mark an X on the calendar. She ran her eyes over it. It had been almost a month since his last nightmare.
At first, she began marking the dates to see if there was a pattern to it. She even brought it up to her therapist but was quickly reminded that it was not her job to fix him. Her actual job was to prepare for the Androids and every once in a while, solve his fits of anger because of the bots.
She eyed the camera from inside the Training Capsule, red blasting because of him abusing the gravity censor. Every time her screen blasted with a warning of his going up and up, she wanted to shut it off manually.
The screaming match that she would take a part of was sometimes worth it.
He was as usual, shirtless, displaying that whole Greek god physic. She bit her lip, rolling her eyes and trying to remind herself that she was the one to impose limits at first. Look at her drooling now.
He was quite quick; the camera could barely keep up. She didn’t watch often – for obvious reasons, but also because she got quite anxious watching him fight. Not only because it seemed he was pushing himself to the extreme, but because she hated watching him wretch her bots.
And though her therapist was doing a good job with her, nothing could stop her from lightening a cigarette while she watched her own personal horror movie. Every time she watched him throw a punch, or a blast, or even dodge one of the bots; her mind couldn’t help but imagine him fighting the Androids.
Could he save them?
She bit the cigarette a bit too hard, eyes blurred from the camera as she thought of their future. And it was on that trance that he caught her by surprise. Somehow, she spaced out for perhaps twenty minutes, the cigarette long spent. Vegeta had shut the training off and dragged one of her bots into her lab.
Startled, she jumped off her chair when the metal clank broke her reverie. His dark-abyss eyes stare at her, unfazed by her scare.
“Fix the bots, woman,” he snarled.
Her brows lifted. To a man that was quite loud in calling her vulgar whenever he heard her say something; he wasn’t shy of parading around with his upper-body glistering sweat, in a lab that was not private. Bulma could see the many eyes that turned to admire his body as he seldom paid her a visit.
He only ever showed up to complain about the bots.
If she didn’t grow with Goku, she would wonder were all of the food he eats goes to, but the man was a machine. She felt that if she could just touch him, her skin would break by how sharp he was.
Shaking her head to be brought to reality, Bulma adopted a sneer.
“Why don’t you stop breaking them?”
He sniggered, “why don’t you make them better? They are getting easier to destroy.”
“Which actually means you’re getting stronger, Badman; not that my designs are faulty,” she sighed. “Put it here, would you?”
She pointed at the long table behind herself, turning to grab a pair of glasses.
Vegeta took a second too long to grab the bot, when she turned he was staring at the back of her head with a frown. Self-consciously she fixed her hair, locked in a braid of turquoise.
“What?”
He tsked, grabbing the bot as if it weighed nothing. The table shook as he dropped it, crossing his arms in front of his pectoral. She wanted to groan but focused on opening it up and analysing the remaining parts. He always did too much damage for her to reuse the bots, but she could still savage some parts.
Vegeta remained stoic and silent next to her, observing her expert fingers work.
His brain was lost in thoughts. He knew the woman might’ve heard him that morning, but it was too shameful to admit that even after his death, Frieza still plagued his life. It wasn’t enough to be ripped from his family and planet at such a young age, beaten to almost-death a few times, tortured, transformed into a maniac solider – he had to make him lose his mind.
The woman never commented on the nightmares, but he could feel her eyes on him during their first meal of the day. He surrounded himself with food, sitting further from the rest of the Brief family, while devouring his nutrients. One thing he had to admit, was that Earth had great food, and the family wasn’t shy of new experiences and providing him with his most unusual tastes.
At first, the woman’s mother – Bikini, a word he learnt later was also used for a skimpy excuse of clothes when bathing – insisted he sat near them. He had compromised in sitting half-away.
The intelligent woman in front of him was good in ignoring his presence, mostly when her worm boyfriend was around; but every screaming-worth nightmare proved that she wasn’t alienated.
“Hullo, Earth to Prince Vegeta?”
He was poked on the chest, his eyes dropping to a turquoise nail poking his skin. Unable to hold the shiver that picture brought him, she caught on it before he pushed her hand away. Taking a step back and clearing her throat, Bulma’s eyes fell back to the bot.
“I was saying that it will take me a couple hours to fix this one,” she muttered. “So, if you wish to return to the Capsule, feel free.”
She didn’t pry, didn’t push and didn’t point his obvious confusion. He retrained his face into a scold.
“Fine.”
He was almost out of her door, when she called his name again.
“See you at dinner,” she gave him a shy smile.
With a nod, he was out of there.