Chapter Text
Inspired by this tweet.
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As much as Vegeta hated getting in trouble, he hated it even more when he wasn’t even the one who caused it.
Well, to be fair… lesser men than he would probably not even think that he was in trouble to begin with, but to that, he would vehemently snarl in disagreement.
He was in big, huge trouble - and the cause of it stood before him, smiling brightly, blissfully unaware of the beads of cold sweat that had begun trailing down the back of his neck.
He gulped.
“You… cannot possibly be serious, Bulma,” he muttered, and she just grinned, holding her hand out to him, and Vegeta frantically saw his life flash before his eyes.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain his conundrum if one knew the root cause of his aggravation…
The panic clouding his mind was rooted in the fact that he was desperately, helplessly in love with the woman standing before him.
Bulma Briefs. His best friend of eight years. Whom he had also been in regretfully unrequited love with for the past eight years.
It all started on the second day of high school, when he had been beating up his idiot classmate, Kakarot, in the back of the gym building. She had come running, bearing a sixth sense for when the people she cared about were in trouble, and had stupidly stepped in the path of one of his punches, blue hair flying in the air as she hissed in indignant fury.
“Stay away from Goku, you psychopath!”
He would never forget the pure rage in her blue eyes, the way her tiny fists clenched as if she had wanted to hit him right back, before she held a hand out to Kakarot - or Goku, as she called him - to help him up from where he had been sprawled on the ground. She and Kakarot had apparently been childhood friends, and as she led the taller man away, she had stood in Vegeta’s path, glaring at him until they were out of his sight.
He had always told her that the incident behind the gym was what made him deem her worthy of his attention, and he had gone out of his way to begrudgingly befriend her, and Kakarot, after then.
That had been a lie. The truth of the matter was, that was the day that Vegeta found himself in love.
Oh, how he loved a woman who could kick his ass, or at least one that would die trying, and Bulma was just that. She was bright and cheerful, with wit as quick as her sharp tongue. She had always called him out on his bullshit, and he had always snarled back, but every time her eyes lit up with the challenge of another argument, he just fell harder.
The one problem then had been that she was already in a relationship with this other ugly asshole whose only advantage over Vegeta, as far as he was concerned, was that he had been taller. Loathe as he was to admit it, he was not a big enough jerk to try to steal someone else’s woman away, and he had stewed in merciless pining until Bulma finally went and called it quits.
By then though, they were already in university together, and they had both been extremely busy - him, working on becoming a Civil Engineer, and she an Electrical Engineer. She also wasn’t ready to move on, he knew, and he was too chicken shit to try, terrified to have her turn him away.
As cliche as it had been, he didn’t want to lose her, and decided that keeping her as a friend would be preferable to never seeing her again.
Some days, he felt like an idiot for making that decision. Most days, he knew he was.
However, he swore that he would never, ever let her know.
He would never let her know how his eyes sometimes traced the shape of her lips, and he’d wonder how they would feel against his.
How he’d sometimes look at her slender hand, and his mind’s eye would imagine the glint of a gold ring on her finger, one with a matching pair on his own left hand.
She’d never know how he’d sometimes literally dream of waking up with her in his arms, her face pressed against his chest while his fingers weaved through the strands of her hair.
He was utterly whipped.
The biggest payoff on his questionable decision was that they had been virtually inseparable, and he gladly took what he could get. He always found himself smirking in quiet delight as he discretely watched her, taking note of little things like the small crease between her brows when she was puzzling over a concept, and the devious grin that crossed her lips when she managed to snag the last bagel in their campus’ only decent coffee shop.
He damn near almost lost his mind when she took a job from out of town after they graduated.
He’d taken comfort in the fact that they never lost contact, speaking frequently through video calls and communicating through text with her memes and his exasperated confusion over what the hell she found so funny in those things.
Another bright spot was the fact that his family’s contracting company often sent him on trips to her new town, and he and Bulma had long had an arrangement that whenever he was over, he could crash with her, as she had a spare room that he always slept in when he stayed overnight.
That was, until that evening.
Knowing her as long as he did, he had known something was off since he called her to tell her he was coming over the next day, and Bulma had answered that she would cook.
Vegeta practically felt his brows raise past the dip of his deep widow’s peak. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I can make a mean roast chicken. Chichi taught me!”
“You can barely boil water,” he teased.
“You’ll eat your words along with my delicious roast chicken, you asshole,” she quipped, and in his mind’s eye, he can practically see her curling her fists in annoyance.
"Whatever, woman,” he answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want me to bring food with me?”
“No!” she shrilled. “I’ll cook, and you’ll like it!”
She had cooked alright, but neither of them particularly liked her uniquely charcoal-flavored chicken, and they had just ended up ordering pizza.
It was late by the time they finished eating, and Vegeta then stretched, yawning lightly.
“We’ve both got tomorrow off, but I’m exhausted from today,” he said. “Do you mind if I take the shower first?”
“Not at all!” she answered.
He got up, picked up his small luggage, then headed for where he knew her spare bedroom was.
“Ah, Vegeta, just a sec!” she called out, just as he moved to turn the doorknob to the room and found it locked.
“What?” he asked, turning, very quickly and covertly running his eyes over her form.
Her long blue hair was in a messy ponytail, and she stood before him in an old high school tee and a pair of red shorts. Her pale legs seemed impossibly long, and her feet were encased in fuzzy bedroom slippers.
He’d seen her look this way many times before, and it never ceased to take his breath away.
“Well, see,” she started, and he noted the little wiggle in her hip that she always did whenever there was a problem. “You kinda can’t use that room right now.”
He felt his eyes widen in surprise. “Why not?"
“One of the pipes broke,” she said, twisting her fingers together in agitation. “It kinda flooded a part of the room, and some electrical wirings got affected-”
“What the hell?” he growled. “What kind of building is this, that’s dangerous! Do you want me to take a look?”
“I am literally an Electrical Engineer, and I already took a look,” she said. “And it’s ok, I already reported it! The building manager will be coming to check on it by tomorrow."
“When did this even happen?”
“Yesterday, right after you called.”
“Dammit Bulma,” he sighed, filled with consternation as he realized that it was now way too late to go out to move to a hotel. “You should have told me. I could have stayed in a hotel. Hell, I could have taken you along with me if I knew your apartment was compromised.”
“It really isn’t a problem,” she said. “I mean, you could still sleep here, just… not in that room.”
He surreptitiously eyed her couch - no, her love seat - and realized that even though he was, ahem, not exactly tall, he couldn’t possibly fit in that damn chair.
“Do you have a futon?” he asked.
“Um… no,” she answered.
“Where the heck should I sleep then-”
“I don't have a futon, but,” she piped up, “I was thinking we could just sleep together, on my bed!”
… Which brought him to his current conundrum.
Her hand was stretched out, waiting for him to take it, and he blanched, resisting the urge to actually take a step back.
“I- I- what?” he asked ever so eloquently. “You’re not joking?”
“No!” she laughed. “It’s the only bed in this apartment, and it’s a big one. I’m pretty sure we’ll fit.”
“That is not the issue here!” he nearly whined, even while he helplessly placed his hand in hers, letting himself get dragged to the doorway of her bedroom. “It’s your bed.”
“So?” she asked, guilelessly. “We’re just going to sleep, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t wanna sleep on the floor.”
A thousand past daydreams rushed through his mind, fantasies of holding her tight in his arms as she dozed beside him frantically waving at him from the depths of his consciousness. Though sleeping beside Bulma would quite literally be a dream come true, Vegeta found himself flustered, his heart beating manically against his rib cage as he desperately cast about for something to say.
“This is wrong though, isn't it?” he asked. “It’s your room! I’ve never even been in a woman’s room before.”
“Vegeta,” she sighed, “Do you have any idea how pathetic that sounds?”
He snarled, feeling his cheeks flush. “Still! I am not going to compromise your honor-”
“Oh my god,” she cackled, “That sounds even worse!”
“Bulma-”
“Come on, Vegeta. You sleeping beside me would not compromise my honor,” she snarked, rolling her eyes at him. “Besides, you’d slept beside me before. Remember that time we went camping and I forgot my tent?”
“Kakarot was snoring three feet away in the same tent.”
“Still!” she argued. “Come on! Or do you find me so gross that you’d literally rather sleep anywhere else?”
He thought he detected a hint of hurt in her voice, and that was all it took for Vegeta to sigh, grudgingly nodding his defeat.
"Let's go sleep on your bed then," he acquiesced.
“Yay! Slumber party!” she jumped, pulling him into her room behind her.
He sighed again, deeper this time.
He was in so much trouble.
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To be continued...