A Light in the Darkness - part 17: After Dinner Arguments
by Mia Skywalker & Wataruo

PAIRING: Bulma/Vegeta
RATING: G? PG?
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: Neither of us owns any of the DBZ characters or anything about DBZ, but we both wish we owned the Saiyans. All of them. At least the ones with hair. These characters are owned by Toei, Viz, Akira Toriyama, and FUNimation, even though the last one is a crying shame. We do own what we've written here, and our specific storyline, just not Dragonball itself. We make no money off of any of these guys, nor off this fic. We just have fun writing it.
SUMMARY: Arguments over dinner
Notes: Thanks to Ravyn for beta'ing!

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Last time on Dragonball Z: A Light in the Darkness....

Vegeta and Bulma's idea of 'tender aftermath'.

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Vegeta followed Bulma back into the kitchen. He wasn't even aware of Mrs. Briefs' satisfied smile at the sight of the two walking in together. Neither of them noticed that it had been almost two hours since Vegeta had gone to retrieve Bulma from her workshop to eat dinner. Vegeta was paying way too much attention to the sway of Bulma's hips as she walked, so did not see Mrs. Briefs' smile widen.

"There you two are," she said. "I have saved a lot of food for you two. I hope you are hungry."

Vegeta grinned back at the other woman as he answered. "I am always hungry. But I think I should save some room for dessert."

Bulma looked at Vegeta in confusion, puzzled by what he meant, then glanced back at her mother with a question in her eyes. "Where's Gohan?" she asked curiously.

Mrs. Briefs smiled fondly. "The poor boy was exhausted, so I sent him to bed after he ate. He has one of the spare Playtendos in the room I gave him, so that will probably keep him occupied until he's ready for bed. I really don't think he'll be awake for very much longer, though." Mrs. Briefs glanced shrewdly at the two of them. "Perhaps tomorrow morning I should arrange for Bulma's room to be enlarged? It does mean that she'll have to sleep elsewhere... for a little while, at least."

Bulma blushed faintly. "Mother...! I really don't want...."

"Oh, don't worry, dear. Your father doesn't know anything yet. I haven't said a word, and he hasn't figured it out. I won't tell him, or anyone else, if you don't want me to."

Bulma continued to blush, glancing briefly and uncertainly at Vegeta before answering her mother. "No, please, I'd really rather not."

"If that's what you wish." Mrs. Briefs shrugged eloquently, then shooed both of them to the table. "Come on, there's still plenty, and I kept it warm for you!" She returned from the kitchen escorted by several robots carrying numerous platters of food. "There's plenty for both of you! Now, I'll leave you two to enjoy your dinner in peace!" Mrs. Briefs beamed happily at both of them and then left the two of them alone in the dining room. Bulma glanced uncertainly at Vegeta before serving herself several portions and hesitantly beginning to eat.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow at the size of the portions Bulma chose for herself. It never ceased to amaze him that she could live on so little. He could see her studying him out of the corner of his eye as he started to eat and said nothing to contradict her when she stated that she wanted no one to know about their new relationship. Vegeta wasn't sure if he wanted anyone to know about it himself, and it suited him just fine that that she wanted to keep it a secret.

"Is that all you are going to eat woman?" he inquired after Bulma's mother left the room. "You do realize that you are going to need to replace the calories that you used up earlier." His mouth curved upward to become a smile. "Not to mention the ones you are going to burn off later."

Bulma looked startled. "I'm not a Saiyan," she pointed out. "I can only eat so much, no matter how hungry I might get. If I'm hungry again, I'll eat more later." It took her several minutes to realize what Vegeta had been implying, and then she blushed deeply. "Vegeta, I don't know...."

Vegeta chuckled. "Are you so sore then, woman?" he asked. "I must admit I had forgotten that you are new to this." He continued to smirk at her as he spoke. "It's no matter," he informed her. "You will no longer be sleeping alone."

Bulma continued to blush. She wasn't sure why Vegeta was so insistent upon sleeping in her bed with her this way. Sleeping in the same bed as someone else was a new experience for her. "Are you sure you want to?" she mumbled nervously. "There's much more room on your own bed if you sleep by yourself. How do you know I don't snore, or thrash in my sleep? How do you know you'll really want to?"

Vegeta just chuckled. "If I didn't want to, woman, I wouldn't have mentioned it." He folded his hands in front of him and watched her poke at her food for several minutes. "Or you could just get a bigger bed."

Bulma glared at him, then looked pointedly at his still untouched dinner. "Not hungry tonight, radish head?" she asked coolly, to cover her discomfiture.

"Very hungry," he admitted as he eyed her. He took his time as he let his gaze wander over her face. "But I am saving room for dessert."

Bulma rolled her eyes in exasperation. Trust a Saiyan to prefer empty calories to nutritional food. She had absolutely no idea why he kept mentioning dessert, when her mother hadn't even mentioned making one. Often enough they did have something, but not always. 

"Fine," she snarled at him. "If you'd rather eat dessert than dinner, I'm sure mother has something you can eat in the kitchen. I'd prefer something more substantial myself." She began eating dinner, doing her best to ignore the Saiyan sitting across from her.

Vegeta snorted. Trust Bulma to miss the point completely. For such an intelligent woman, how she could be so clueless about other things never ceased to amaze him. Vegeta couldn't help himself. He started to laugh.

Bulma stared at Vegeta. She had absolutely no idea why he was laughing, but she sensed that somehow she was the brunt of a joke that she didn't understand. In a fit of pique she shoved her chair back and stood up, glaring at him. "Fine!" she ground out. "Whatever you find so amusing, I guess it should keep you amused all night! Good night, vegetable breath!" she shouted at him, not finishing her food, as she stormed out of there, stomping her way upstairs.

Vegeta was still amused as he stood and followed Bulma out into the hall and scooped her up as she made it to the top of the stairs. She gave a startled yelp as lifted her and he grinned wickedly down at her. "Don't be stupid, woman," he grumbled at her. "You haven't even finished eating yet." He turned and headed back down the stairs.

"You didn't eat your dinner either," she pointed out irritably. "Go get something to eat before you starve to death. At least I'm not a Saiyan, who gets weak when I don't eat." She remembered the way Goku couldn't fight when he was hungry.

"I am not going to starve to death, woman," he snapped back. ::But she does have a point:: he thought to himself in annoyance. It wasn't a well-known fact that Saiyans got weak when they didn't eat, and Vegeta hadn't eaten since breakfast. He was in fact really hungry. "So what are we waiting for?" He put her back down on her feet.

"Fine!" she snarled at him, then stomped back downstairs. She sat down at her chair again with a defiant thump, and glared at him in irritation. Somehow Vegeta always managed to rub her exactly the wrong way, and she wasn't entirely sure why. She attacked her food almost viciously, as though she was somehow venting her feelings of anger and irritation towards Vegeta on her food. She really didn't know why she was angry with Vegeta at the moment, but the idea that he might have been ridiculing her in some manner made her want to throw something at him.

Vegeta grinned at her as he sat down. He had no idea why, but he enjoyed these verbal sparring matches they had. She certainly seemed to be paying him more attention now than in the past, and it pleased him to no end.

"You don't have to kill your meal, woman," he remarked as he dug into his own food. "It's already dead."

"My food is," she muttered in agreement. "Certain Saiyans aren't." She continued to glare daggers at him as she ate.

"Yes it is a shame that Kakarotto is still breathing," he agreed. He knew full well that the Saiyan she was referring to was him, but he decided to play stupid. "He won't be for long."

Bulma stopped eating for a moment and glared even more fiercely at him. She knew he was just saying that to bait her, and despite knowing that, it still worked. Just the thought of him killing Goku sent a sharp pain through her heart. Goku had already died once, and the Chikyuu dragonballs couldn't bring him back again. 

"His son," she pointed out in a snarl, "is upstairs. If you fight Goku, you'll have to fight Gohan as well. And Krillin, and Tenshinhan, and Yamcha." She paused for a second. "And me." She knew the threat didn't hold much water, but it was all she had. If he killed her dearest friends, then she wouldn't rest until she'd killed him. ::And I don't care how good in bed he is:: she thought with a feeling akin to pain.

"Don't be stupid," he snapped. "You wouldn't have a chance against me." Vegeta found that killing the others didn't bother him half as much as fighting her did. He knew immediately that he would never hurt her and it bothered him that she would even consider fighting him. And that was something that unnerved the Saiyan prince more than he liked to admit.

"I don't care!" she shouted at him, suddenly furious. "If you kill my friends then I'll kill you! And I don't care HOW long it takes, I'll find a way if it kills me!"

"Oh you will, will you?" he asked standing up abruptly. "I think not, human." He glared at her, angry that she would want to protect her friends. He was furious at himself as well, wondering why her anger bothered him. It wasn't like she belonged to him. Something sharp twisted in his stomach at that thought.

"You think, you think! You don't think, Saiyan! You never think, you just attack and destroy and kill! You don't care about anything or anyone other than yourself, you obnoxious, rude, irritating... Saiyan!" She said the last as though it were the vilest epithet she could think of, which at the moment was true. "They're my friends, and I care about them, and that means I will fight for them! That's what friends do, something I know you would never do! It's no wonder you have no friends, since you don't know how to care about anyone! No wonder no one else cares if you live or die! You don't care if anyone else does, so why should anyone care about you?" 

With that she threw down her fork, and ran back upstairs, tears streaming down her face. She didn't know why her own words hurt her so much, yet somehow they did. They struck a chord deep within her, as something inside of her wondered if anyone else truly cared about her as well.

Vegeta slowly sat back down. Could she possibly be right? He wondered momentarily why it would bother him. After all, on Vegeta-sei no one 'cared' for anyone else. It was simply the strongest survived, the weak died. He couldn't care less that no one on this miserable hellhole liked him. Feelings were for the weak-minded. It didn't matter to him one way or another what anyone thought about him. He was going to destroy the planet after he killed Kakarotto anyway, so these people were just here to amuse him in the meantime.

But that didn't stop him from standing back up and pausing at the foot of the stairs, wondering if he should go an see if Bulma was alright. His hearing allowed him to hear her weeping and something in his stomach twisted hard. ::Why should I care what she thinks of me?:: he thought, annoyed. He folded his arms across his chest and stared up the stairs wondering what he doing standing around like an idiot when he had things he should be doing. But he didn't move from his position until Bulma's weeping eased, then he headed up the stairs to her room.

To be continued.....

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And in the next exciting episode of DragonBall Z: A Light in the Darkness... Confessions, realizations... and lemon.