Drabble: Engineering Love
AU fic-The Earth houses both Saiyans and Humans. Both co-exist with little problem. Our characters work for 2 of the biggest companies. Bleh, Bleh, I really hate intros. Anyways, this story popped into my head, and I wanted to get it down. Not certain that I'll continue on with it, but I felt like sharing.
Disclaimer: All characters (unless otherwise stated) are property of their original creator, and I make no money from using them in the creation or posting of my drabble/fiction.
Characters: Radditz, Vegeta, Bulma Briefs, Saku (oc)
Saying the little conference room was tense would have been an understatement. You could practically cut the tension with a knife. The two CEOs sat in silence across from each other, both busying themselves with piles of neatly stacked documents.
Bulma broke through the silence not looking up from her paperwork, "I see your sales have increased recently."
"Hnn," Vegeta grunted. "Government contract."
"Nice."
There was a soft knock on the door, and a man shuffled in, looking somewhat out of place in the pristine conference room. He pulled his long lab coat tighter around him in an attempt to hide the greasy coveralls hidden beneath. Neither of the two seated looked up from their work.
"You're late, Radditz," Bulma stated looking at her watch as he took the seat beside her.
"I'm sorry. I was a little preoccupied." He mumbled leaning over to look at the document in her hand.
"You knew about this meeting three months ago." She said harshly. "And, I've sent you countless memos." She handed the packet to him.
He merely shrugged as he pulled his long thick hair into a messy tail, and began flipping through the paperwork.
"So let's begin," Bulma said matter-of-factly, neatly stacking the small pile of documents in front of her.
Vegeta held up his finger, and then quickly typed something into his mobile.
Not even two minutes later, there was another knock on the door, as a rather smallish woman scurried in. Thick bangs covered her eyes, while the rest of her long black hair was tied into a neat bun, and her business attire under her lab coat was no less than immaculate. Smokey tinted glasses hung off her nose as she scribbled away on her tablet computer. She absentmindedly pulled out the chair beside Vegeta and continued working as though no one else was in the room.
"Nice of you to join us, Saku." Vegeta mused at the mousy woman. Clearing his throat, Vegeta tapped the edge of her screen to draw her attention. Looking up, almost startled, she quickly set it down on the table and drew her hands in her lap. Clearing his throat again, he tapped his temple, and she speedily removed the glasses and set them atop the tablet. He then handed her a packet of her own.
"Now we're ready to begin," He said, glancing up at Bulma with a cocky smile.
Vegeta and Bulma talked numbers for a bit, while both scientists feigned interest by glancing at the packets provided to them by their respective bosses. They both glanced up periodically from the (rather boring) documents to try and get a look with their soon to be partners.
Saku surveyed the disheveled man seated across from her. Grease smeared his forehead and his hair had what looked like metal shaving sprinkled across and into his messy ponytail. Regardless of the grim, he was still handsome, with high cheekbones and a broad jaw. His lab coat looked hardly used, while the coveralls underneath looked worn and patched. He was tall, she could tell even though he was seated, and quite musculature, larger than a human. She dropped her pen purposefully on the floor to get a glance at him under the table. As she silently excused herself, she ducked under to grab it.
His coveralls were tucked sloppily into large leather combat style boots, also smudged with dust and grease. 'Tail, tail, where are you,' she thought to herself. He shifted slightly and she caught sight of it wrapped firmly around his waist. 'So he's a Saiyan.' she mulled over, chewing her bottom lip.
"Saku thinks that mass production should be able to start as soon as this summer," Vegeta stated, startling her and causing her to hit her head hard on her way back up. The two CEOs didn't seem to notice, as she cursed to herself and rubbed the back of her sore head. Looking up at Radditz, she saw him chuckle to himself silently, averting his eyes from hers as she glared daggers across the table.
More numbers were discussed, while Saku and Radditz continued their game of pretending to pay attention to the meeting.
"Now I'd like to get a look at the design before we agree on anything." Bulma cut in, finally drawing Saku's attention into focus.
Pushing her chair out, she stood up, opening her lab coat and pulled a pen drive out of her pants pocket.
Plugging it into her tablet, she pushed the it into the center of the table, pressing a button on the side as a hologram of the proposed machine sparked to life. It rotated slowly in front of them in a small display. "Now the output should be more then 30% of similar products already on the market. We can expe-."
"The design isn't practical," Radditz cut in, causing Saku to choke on her words. Never had anyone said something negative about her designs. The two CEOs turned from the display to look at him now.
"Explain." Vegeta stated.
"From a design stand point, it would be impossible to mass produce in large scale. As it is now, the cost would exceed the gain. Simply put: way to complicated; needs to be simplified."
Saku continued to stand, dumbfounded. While the two began discussing cost, Radditz looked across at her and silently mouthed the words 'Sorry princess,' chuckling to himself. She turned red in anger and plopped back down into her seat with a huff.
"So are you both fine with a brainstorming session at three pm tomorrow?" Bulma questioned, turning now to the odd couple.
"Sure," Radditz said, as Saku gave a curt little nod.
"It would be better to do it in your lab, seeing as how you'll be building the working model." Vegeta cut in.
"I'll be starting the build in the morning," Radditz replied. "That'll probably be best."
They all stood, except Saku, who had reclaimed her tablet and was once again scribbling busily.
"So tomorrow at three, Radditz' lab. I'll have a key card made for her so she won't have a problem getting in." Bulma said as her and Radditz made their way to the door. "You," she said turning her attention now to her tall partner, "Don't change the key code again or I'll burn you alive." With that she pushed him out the door, and turned back to Vegeta. "And you, don't be late to the restaurant tonight our you'll share the same fate." She blew him a kiss as she stepped out the door.
Vegeta smirked to himself as he packed away the documents into his briefcase.
"You should really stop dating business partners," Saku suddenly said, her eyes still glued to her pad.
"You should stay out of my personal business, and really you're one to talk, Sister. I saw you checking him out." Vegeta said smugly, closing his case and taking it by the handle.
"I was not!" she said defensively, setting her pad down and staring up at him with faux hurt in her eyes. "And I don't see why I have to work with HIM. We have plenty of perfectly good engineers within the company."
"Did mother teach you that puppy-eye shit?" Vegeta said amused. "Though I must say, you really should be more careful about the men you pick, I heard he's a bit of a shrew-tamer." He chuckled to himself.
"I really don't see why, the dirty lout," she fumed to herself, catching his 'joke' a little to late.
"And," he snapped at her, drawing her gaze back to him. "You WILL work with him, because we don't have any engineers that are experienced with large scale production." He made his way to the door. "Besides it'll be good for you to get out of your lab once in a while. You look like a fucking vampire." And with that he stepped out the door, leaving Saku fuming to herself.
Tomorrow afternoon came to soon, in her opinion, as Saku made her way across town to the Capsule Corp labs. Stopping at the gate to flash her new high security clearance badge, she drove across the compound to yet another check point. Flashing the badge several more times before she was finally directed to a small parking garage.
'Up to level three. You'll see an old military Jeep, that's Radditz'. He's the only one working on that side of the compound at the moment.' was what the security guard had said. As she pulled in, sure enough, there was the Jeep.
'It suits him, I guess,' she mused, as she parked to the right of the heavily sun faded vehicle. Pulling off her overly large sunglasses. she grabbed her bag and hit the lock button on her key ring. Making her way to the only door out of the garage, she looked up noticing the rather large yellow sign with an arrow pointing at it that said 'Engineering Labs' in large heavy letters. She sighed heavily to herself, and slide her key/id card in the little pad next to the door. Beeping, it swung open.
Walking through the door from the garage she was surprised to find that it opened up directly into the lab proper. The room was huge, much bigger than her own lab, and it seemed to be divided into two distinct sections. On the far side by the door, where Saku was now standing, looked to be an office. The wall to her left was hung with large chalk and white boards. All of which were completely filled with neatly written little numbers and mathematical symbols. She walked up to one seeing that the writing was different measurements and equations, none seemed to coincide, all haphazardly written together, obviously from different projects.
To her right where several rows of desks laden with computers, some on, scrolling generic screen savers, some off. She wandered over to the desk furthest in. It looked to be the most important with a large CPU connected to at least four different screens. The screen on the far right looked to be running a simulation of her design, while on the opposite end another was running a simulation of what looked to be a rather simplified version of her original. Two screens in the center were collecting the data of the simulations, once in awhile highlighting key numbers when the simulations varied.
"The son of a bitch made it more efficient," she said to no one in particular as she glanced over the quickly compounding data. 'I really have to rethink my opinion of him.' She set down her bag on the floor next to the desk and looked up from the station, and that's when she caught sight of him on the other side of the room in the workshop area of the lab.
Radditz was welding a tank onto the frame of a motorcycle like vehicle.. Faded, blue coveralls unbuttoned and tied around his waist, he was wearing a black undershirt, while he thick arms were covered in welding leathers. Rather than a mask, he was wearing old 50's style goggles. and his hair was tied high on the back of his head and breaded into a thick tail. Headphones on his ears, he seemed to be mouthing the lyrics to whatever song he was currently listening to, completely oblivious to the fact that she was currently in the room.
Saku looked down at her freshly pressed pant suit, and felt, for the first time in her life, extremely overdressed. "I should have known better," she cursed to herself as she took off her jacket and stuffed it into her bag. She looked down at herself once more and was embarrassed to see that her expensive looking linen blouse was partially see-through. "Fuck."
She looked up at Radditz again, noticing that he had turned off his welding gun and was now scrutinizing a set of scribbled on blue prints hung on the wall behind him. He pulled off the goggles, rubbing his eyes and turned around toward the office portion of the lab. Saku ducked behind the monitors and spied on him as he made his way to a small refrigerator, that stood not to far from where she was hiding. He bent over perusing the shelves, giving her a perfect view of his backside. Grabbing a bottle of water, he popped the cap off and took a swig.
'if anything, he makes good eye candy,' she thought to herself. She pulled out the chair in front of her, she was about to sit when he suddenly spoke.
"You like what you see?" He said turing around and taking the headphone off his ears. His sudden comment made her miss the chair and fall squarely on her backside with a gasped, "Shit."
"How long did you know I was here?" Saku asked, pulling herself painfully to her feet and rubbing her sore bottom. "And to answer your question: No, I don't," she lied.
"Long enough," he chuckled. Tail snaking out from around his waist, it grabbed the bottle of water as he pulled his arms out of the welders cape and threw it on the desk beside him. He stretched his arms above his head and craned his neck to both sides trying to stretch out his sore muscles.
'No I certainly do not like what I see,' she thought to herself wantonly.
"The original design, your design, is itself perfect, if not a little convoluted." he said pointing at the computer in front of her. "I admit my first thoughts on the device were a little harsh. The perfection of the design made it a fairly easy task to simplify the structural aspects."
Saku caught herself blushing at his 'compliment' of sorts. She seriously hoped he didn't notice.
"I figured you'd want to help me with the actual build. So I decided to run the models this morning instead. Besides you're a couple hours early for our 'brian storming' session." He glanced up at the clock that hung crooked on the wall behind her. "Actually its about time for lunch, if you're interested in grabbing something with me?" It was less of a question and more of a statement.
"Ah sure," she managed to stammer out, now wondering if it was a little pretentious of her to show up three hours early. she was completely unaware of his hand on her back as he began leading her out the door. Finally catching herself she turned into him, "Um, my bag."
"Leave it, I'll treat you."
"At least let me grab my jacket," she almost pleaded.
"I think you look fine like that. Beside we aren't going anywhere fancy." He smiled down at her. The smile was warm and genuine, catching her completely off guard. His onyx eyes seemed to draw her in. "Has anyone ever told you, you have very pretty eyes. They remind me of a rainstorm." He said, his free hand brushing aside her thick bangs.
She looked down, touching her temple unconsciously, a blush spreading quickly to her cheeks. "Um, thank you," she managed to stammer out.
"For someone who doesn't take criticism well, you don't seem to be getting too many compliments."
She almost didn't catch his last statement as she was still mulling over his comment about her eyes. Her damned eyes. "It's just no one in my family finds my eyes particularly appealing," she confessed softly. "You see I'm not my father's child. My eyes are what gave away my mother's infidelity."
His smile turned downwards. "Sorry to bring up something painful."
She shook her head, "No, its childish for me to still be depressed about it."
"Well, let's forget about it and get going." With this he ushered her out the door and into his Jeep without so much as another comment from either of them.
The Jeep was topless, and out in the bright summer sun, Saku finally noticed just how see-through her top really was. Disgusted with her poor clothing choices, she crossed her arms and hoped to god that Radditz didn't noticed the black bra she happened to have picked out.
They didn't speak on their way to where ever they were going. Mainly, she assumed, because Radditz had the stereo turned up rather high, and they wouldn't have been able to hear each other anyways. Not like she had anything outside of work related issues she wished to discuss.
Stopping at the main gate of the compound, Radditz turned and shuffled around for something in his back seat. Pulling out a rather ornate bento box, he turned down the stereo and called out, "Oi, Goku."
A tall man dressed in a blue guard uniform stepped out of the building. "Oh hey bro. What's up?"
"Can you give this back to your wife, and tell her it was delicious." He said handing him the little box.
"Will do," Goku said giving him a goofy smile. He spotted Saku in the passenger seat and craned his neck to get a good look at her. "Who's your friend?" His question laden with implications.
"A coworker," He replied roughly and hit the gas, quickly speeding away from the little guard station and onto the main road.
"Who was that?" Saku took the opportunity to ask him several minutes down the road, suddenly happy he hadn't thought to turn up the radio yet.
"My brother," he sighed. There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. "My family is actively trying to marry me off. So his wife makes me lunch once in awhile to try and black mail me into a marriage meeting." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye when she didn't say anything.
There was another bit of silence before she finally spoke up. "Mine are doing the same. They've been actively trying since I turned sixteen. Had to fight to even go away to college. They wanted me to go to finishing school instead." She childishly stuck her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag at the idea. They both had a good laugh. They spent the remainder of the twenty minute drive back into the city chit-chatting about family and marriage, and having a rather grand time laughing and joking about both.
Finally he parallel parked (impressively, in Saku's opinion) in front of a tiny cafe in a 'hip' part of town.
"This really doesn't seem like your type of place," she said looking down at his dirty coverall and bleach-pocked, black tank top.
"They have good coffee," He shrugged, extracting himself from the vehicle.
Saku was pleased to find the cafe rather dimly lit, and she uncrossed her arms, stretching them out in front of her. She followed Radditz to the bar as a clerk greeted him like an old friend. "Oi! Nice to see you're alive."
"Yeah, lots of projects due recently."
"The regular?"
Nodding, he leaned over the counter. "Who's in the back today?" He said in a hushed whisper.
The clerk lean forward slightly "Billy," he said quietly.
"No onions." And they both nodded to each other knowingly.
"And for the lady?" He said suddenly cheery again.
Saku caught herself staring up at the menu board but not really seeing it. "Um, I'll just have what he's having."
The clerk raised an eyebrow, looking her up and down her small frame. "You sure?"
"He's treating me," she said nodding, hoping his 'regular' wasn't too ungodly.
Radditz chuckled, "I like a girl who knows what she wants." And he stepped over to pay the clerk, tipping him quite generously. He then took her hand, much to Saku's surprise, and lead them to a private booth located in the back of the small cafe.
After settling themselves in across from each other, Radditz, leaning back into his seat, spoke up. "So why mechanical engineering? You really don't seem the type."
"My brother, Vegeta, actually suggested it. I assume it was because I was better at fixing my dad's car than painting my nails. It was a rather easy choice in the long run."
"You? A grease monkey? I call bullshit." He said.
A waitress came and set down two pitchers of beer and two mugs down in front of them. "Thanks sweetheart," he said winking at her. She giggled and slapped him playfully on the shoulder, strutting away rather vampishly.
Saku poured herself a mug and chugged a few gulps as she witnessed the small exchange. "Playboy. YOU shoulda' been a gigolo," she murmured into her mug.
"Yeah, prolly. Would've made better money." He smiled at her playfully, fully enjoying her small confession of jealousy.
They exchanged a few more playful barbs, before the same waitress brought out their food. This time Radditz' attention was fully on Saku (much to her enjoyment) and she received little more than a thank you, as she made her way haughtily back into the kitchen.
Much to Saku's pleasure, 'the regular' was a load of greasy meat, overly stuffed into a foot long log of bread. Taking the large sandwich into rather small hands, she looked up at Radditz, her eyes glazed over in fake lust. "I like my sandwiches like I like my men: Big and meaty," she said huskily, and with that she took and huge bite. The whole scene caused him to choke as he happened to be taking a drink at that very moment. They both broke into instantaneous laughter, and managed to spend the rest of the lunch hour in a state of permanent chuckles and giggles, because one or the other continued to make some kind of crude sexual comment.
Stumbling merrily (in laughter, not liquor) out of the cafe and back into his Jeep. He turned to her, a wide smile on his face. "You make a terrible prude you know."
"Who told you I was a prude?" she said, her lip puffed out in a pout.
"Your brother, as he was handing me your design schematics yesterday. His exact words were, 'Here's the designs. Watch out, she's a prude.'"
"That son of a bitch is a bullshit lier," she scoffed.
He laughed at her comment, as they were waved through all of the gates leading into the heart of the compound. He parked in his original spot next to her small compact, and he made a comment about it 'suiting you,' as he swiped his key card and they made their way back into the lab.