A/N - A silly idea that popped into my head. Just the ramblings of a mad woman. Nah, I wanted to try a one-shot, so here you are. I wanted to go into a random moment in their relationship, during the seven year slot. It hasn't been beta checked, so feast upon the errors!
Mature content. Please heed the warning.
Choosing One's Attire
Black, green, yellow, orange, silver, pink, cream … wait … Pink?
Who'd done it this time? That old barrel-of-laughs joke had been flung at him yet again. No way was it becoming tedious. Not in the slightest. He grumbled something about how pleasant the extinction of the human race would be, and scrunched the t-shirt into a ball, before chucking it out of sight and mind.
Here, hanging up in a cosy, little line, he had t-shirts and shirts in all the colours of the pissing rainbow, yet he did not see a single item remotely within his taste. Navy blue, or dark blue, or whatever. It was all he asked for. Not (he pulled at a shirt, twisted the sleeve and sneered) a garment with purple and red squares printed all over it. Even on Frieza's ship he'd been allowed clothing of his choice.
Navy. Always navy.
He didn't know why it pulled at his nerves so much. But after a long, gruelling training session, amidst the itching of a headache, the only thing he wanted to do was shower, and get into some comfortable clothing of the navy variety. It was a vicious cycle, though: telling that woman to not embellish his closet with pointless items. Did she ever listen? Even threatened with death, the next day she will have placed ten more t-shirts-in a foul shade of vomit—in his closet, and hung up each one for his tired eyes to fall upon. He was sick of it. Sick of it. Sick of the different fabric styles and textures, sick of the strange tastes they owned, sick of the airy smell they wafted towards him every time he flung the closet doors open. It was a wonder why he chose to saunter the corridors in a mere pair of shorts. He simply couldn't, after working his arse off, be bothered, faced with a decision such as 'what colour of clothing he was to wear', when he hated the damn lot of them.
Maybe he was overreacting.
Choosing something to put over your skin shouldn't have enraged him so. Oh, but it did. Because, technically, it wasn't his choice anymore. That choice was being made for him, and he wouldn't have it. He grabbed the clothes, heaped them together and ripped them off their hangers, plonking them into a huge mass on the floor. There. None of them were fit for him. They would remain on the floor.
All of a sudden he remembered doing the same thing as a child—throwing a tantrum after searching his father's closet for a titanium brooch formed into the shape of the Saiyan insignia. His mother had caught him, berated him, before patting his head and promising him everything in the universe. In that moment, he vividly recalled her face, the delicate skin under her left eye blackened, and a small peel of flesh torn from her ruby lip.
Never did he once ask how she got those wounds. Or any other time.
A dull throbbing on his bottom lip begged him to feel the situation. He pulled his hand back, shiny red on his fingertips. Unbidden memories such as those kept cropping up at any given time. Their hindering messages jumbled and indecipherable.
The door creaked open.
"Vegeta, my mom has left … meat loaf … in the fridge … What have you done to yourself?"
Her blue eyes widened, and within what seemed like a split second, she was in his face, grasping his chin, turning his face this way and that, scrutinising him. It didn't give him a chance to get a good look at her, but when she stepped back to survey him like he was a lab specimen, he forgot about his headache completely. All week she had been badgering on about some party she had to go to. What bloody shoes would she wear, how would she twist her hair when the length was too inadequate … or something. He barely listened. Avoided it like the plague. The moment he saw her marching down the corridors, he would sidle into the nearest room, and will her to pass by without noticing his presence.
What she was wearing now was … well, it was definitely to his interest. The material was like a second skin, snapped against the curves of her body. He wanted to rip it off with his teeth and bite into her-
"Why are all these clothes on the floor?" she said, raising an accusing eyebrow while surveying the pile-of-shit-clothing.
Derailed, he could do nothing but mumble, "I was looking for something." He rubbed his jaw, making sure his mouth was closed, and turned away.
"Jeez, Vegeta. How'd you get in such a mess?" she said, brushed her fingers against his pulsing lip.
He flinched, batted her hand away. Such a pest.
Why, on the green heaths of the Earth, did she have to use physical contact all the time? It was a human trait, wasn't it? Injured? Touch them. Hungry? Touch them. Aroused …
It wasn't in his nature to be coddled. Even now, after years of this woman's rancid behaviour, he wasn't used to her shrouding him with feeble attempts of care and protection. He seldom regarded her mishaps, so why did she ask about his? By now, you would have thought she would've been used to the state he'd be in after a day in the gravity chamber.
He turned towards her again, to catch her entering his en-suite, causing a ruckus, clattering jars together, running the taps, and running back out with a ball of material in her hand. Without asking, she attacked him with the rolled up towel, pressing it into his lip. He was about to protest, but the cool dampness seeped against his flaming skin and eased him into a tranquil state … for about three seconds, before he seized the cloth himself. He did not need her to baby him.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he said, eyeing her, acting out as if he hadn't been subjected to her tirade of panic over that fucking party already.
She looked at the floor-the mess—and back to him. "What were you looking for?"
"None of your damn business," he said, giving her his shoulder.
He heard her huff. "The only thing you'll find in that closet is clothing, believe it or not," she said, and he could almost hear her eyeballs twizzling in their sockets, the pretentious woman.
"An abundance of it," he said, throwing his hands up. "Different types and variations. Even ones with fucking crocodiles stitched into the fabric. I don't need any of these" Sweat was beading above his temples. He dug his fingers into his hair, raked them through until the roots almost buckled under the strain.
She bent down, bundled a few shirts under her arm, and stood up straight to look at them closely. "And?" she said, holding a purple t-shirt—with bloody triangles on it—at arm's length.
"No."
"No?"
"No." He didn't know why he was still stood there, really. This little performance was running dry.
She shoved it under the crook of her elbow, and looked at him, a delicate yet slightly provoking glint in her eyes. "You're looking for something different?" she said, cocking a hip.
Why did she care? Why did he care? What were they even talking about? The swell in her throat was looking extremely inviting. He wanted to run his tongue down it, push it between her breasts.
"No," he said, dropped the compress, then frowned. "I mean yes."
"Like what?"
Was she an idiot? How many times had he specified that golden information with her?
"Something that isn't … peculiar," he said, grimacing at the offending pile of wasted money.
"Peculiar?" She grinned.
"Something plain."
She rolled her eyes and turned away. "Oh. Boring, you mean."
"Shut up. I'm not wearing any of this shit," he said and kicked the clothes.
She scowled at him. "You can't keep walking around in those little spandex shorts. We've talked about this. My mom can't handle it."
Giving him her behind, she placed the t-shirts she had kept under her arm, onto hanger, slotting them back on the rails, as if it were her closet, and her clothing. At least he was able to feast upon the vision of her again, travelling the curve of her spine, down her thighs and to her calves. He stopped at the sight of a crimson, garish blotch on her right calve. Yet again, a woman he had an emotional attachment to, was branded with blemishes and uncomfortable bruises with no telling as to how they got there. Something pushed against his tongue, a pressure tightening the throat. Why did she have a bruise on her leg? What could she have possibly been up to, to earn a mark such as that ugly-looking thing? Had someone touched her? He had to get a closer look, and while she was busying herself dictating his clothing arrangements, he crouched and narrowed his eyes at it, before wrapping his fingers around her tiny ankle. Before she could open her mouth to garble protests, he pressed the pad of his thumb into the bruise, testing if it had damaged any tissue beneath the surface.
"Wah. Woah, ow!" She tried to wrench free, flicking her leg about like a wild deer. Failing, obviously. "What are you doing?"
She steadied in his grasp, his refusal to let go making her more curious than eager to escape.
"How did you get this?" he blurted out, wishing he hadn't.
Her face contorted into a mixture of emotions, ranging from perplexed, to bemusement, and to indignity. She crossed her arms. "Oh … er … I was fixing a lamp in the lab, and tried to kick the step ladder back into fold, and one of the joints caught my skin."
Said skin was heating up under his touch. What a foolish woman. She could do so many wondrous things, but could be defeated by a step ladder? Something twanged in his chest, the feeling filling and warming him. Slowly, he drifted his hand up her smooth leg, to the back of her thigh, pushing her dress up.
"Um … Vegeta … I have to … er …" she muttered, and wavered on the spot, his fingers tapping against her pert backside. "Ok … I really have to go." She twitched to evade his hungry touch, but his other hand remained possessive over her ankle.
If she really wanted to, she could have easily yanked free. He wasn't holding her with any force. That so-called party was waiting for her, wasn't it?
"No," he said.
"No?"
"No."
She bit her lip and uttered between clenched teeth, "Nuh-uh," shaking her head.
The flimsy material of her panties, silken under his fingers, obstructed the heat emanating from her. He eased the fabric aside and pushed two fingers inside her, her wet insides delicious against his skin. Her knees buckled, but he released her ankle and steadied her at the base of her spine, still crouched, his face inches from where her pleasure resided.
"A creature as delicate as you needs to be more cautious," he said, gazing up.
Trying awkwardly to sway into his rhythm while standing up, she closed her eyes tight and gripped onto the hand that was supporting her back, like she was desperately trying to loosen his hold, wrapping her own fingers around his.
"Mhm," she said, nodding.
The headache had definitely gone. He had her, trapped, her muscles tightening around his fingers as he slowly pulled them out, slipped them back in again, her scent threatening to send him crazy. He bit his lip and continued against her, her whimpers controlling his actions, beckoning him to continue, when out of principle, he needed to stop.
How had it escalated to this?
He stopped, pulling his fingers away, and released her.
She fell back a few steps, blinking, feeling around herself to check if she was real, eyes wild. "Oh my God," she whispered.
He smirked.
"You jerk," she shouted.
He frowned.
"I'm going to be late now," she said, straightening her dress, whipping around for something that wasn't even there to cover her embarrassment.
Truthfully, he was as shocked as she. Something happened to him during that moment, and he couldn't stop himself. Perhaps it was simply the way she looked. Any normal male would have done the same. No, it was deeper than that. Despite her antagonising traits and domineering obsession with choosing his clothing, the thought of her hurt in any way made him shiver. Granted, he had his ways of showing his emotions towards this woman, but she knew as well as he that that was never going to change. They had a system. They had a son together, a bedroom together, and a bizarre yet always enticing relationship together. He guessed, over time, he had changed from who he once was.
Though, navy was still his preference.
She turned to walk away, but stopped, her shoulder blades drawing together as that familiar fire began to burn. "Oh, forget it," she hissed, and paced back towards him, dipped her fingers beneath the waistband of his shorts, and whispered against his collar bone, "You're right. You don't need any of these clothes."