It all started with a dream.
Vegeta didn't normally dream, and when he did, it was usually a visual anthology of his many galactic conquests as part of Frieza's regime. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he might be transported back to his home planet while he slept, sitting around a table with his father and mother. Together they would be discussing the politics of the day and it would feel so real that even Vegeta himself was fully immersed in the fantasy.
Then, someone would ask a question completely out of place, or a random person would pop up–and it always seemed to be Kakarot–and drive a stake through the longed for illusion. Other than that, Vegeta slept in a blissfully quiet abyss of black, his mind so dormant that it felt like he had been staring at a blank screen for hours on end. So imagine his surprise when one night he went to bed and had an entirely different dream, one that he had never in his life had before.
He was standing at the end of the pool, bare feet smoldering on the concrete in the summer sun. In the pool bobbed a sea of blue hair, so close in color to the chlorinated water it almost blended in.
Damnit woman, he hissed. Why isn't she working?
She noticed him and her eyes changed. The expression was soft and her gaze became wide. A feline like grin snaked across her face and she moved directly toward Vegeta, sauntering out of the deep end and into the shallows. The closer she got, the more the water receded, and the more the water receded, the more Vegeta found himself unable to look away from her smooth skin glistening in the sun.
Vegeta felt his chest tighten and his stomach pull. Usually when looking at her, the most emotion he could feign was a genuine distaste. Though in the dewey haze swirling in the atmosphere, she looked positively divine. Nerve endings all over his body lit up, sending volts down from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes.
He lasered in on her seductive gait, the way her hips carved out space in every step she took and how every bead of water picked up a thousand different prisms of light, making Vegeta's head feel dizzy. Her body moved in slow motion, covered only in a small black bikini.
His eyes sprang open to his dark room in Capsule Corp., and he groaned as his hard cock pulsated underneath his boxer briefs. Sweat poured out and his mouth was bone dry. He reached for the lamp before grabbing a glass of water on his bedside table, downing it in one go. His heart was pounding and his skin felt on fire.
It was a dream, he told himself. It was only a dream.
Vegeta did not want to come to Capsule Corp., but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Each morning as he set off to begin his training, he reminded himself of this. It had been several months since that strange youth from the future dropped down from the sky and the Saiyan prince had wasted no time in training. He didn't necessarily believe the man's story entirely, but he didn't want to pass up the opportunity to fight these wickedly strong villains. Keeping focus on that allowed him to forget the motley crew he was now associating with, especially the Briefs family.
Bulma had only once explicitly offered Vegeta a place to stay but that seemed like a lifetime ago to him. When she didn't oppose Vegeta's continued residency after the mystery man bid them a visit, he didn't press his luck. He did find it difficult to tolerate the family. Their odd quirks bothered Vegeta to no end: The Doctor and his parade of employees constantly trampling through, his harpy wife and her incessant need to talk and Bulma, whose disposition was as friendly as a feral dog.
But the accommodations were great, the company notwithstanding, and Bulma threw herself into building a litany of gadgets. Even though he would rather swallow a cactus whole than engage her in any conversation, at least she had proved herself useful.
In exchange for free room and board, he seemingly had to endure pointless conversations and endless tirades. She ran her laboratory (and her house) like Frieza ran a special operations unit. She didn't take orders, absolutely refused any sort of constructive criticism and found some sort of sick satisfaction in screaming at Vegeta every time he turned around.
To make matters worse, for the past several weeks she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend were decidedly off. News of Yamcha's liaisons would reach Bulma, who would then tear apart her laboratory in a jealousy-fueled rage. Anyone standing in her way was subject to both physical and mental torture. While Vegeta was significantly stronger than her–and therefore unaffected by the tools she chucked at his head–she did take to applying unnecessary updates to productively channel her rage. Meaning Vegeta was often left outside to his own devices. Meaning his training was far too often interrupted.
She criticized how much he ate, how he ate, what he wore, how he smelled, how she thought he should smell, being too slow, being too fast. The list went on and on. And in return, he lobbed back a few of his own insults and made hollow threats to destroy mankind.
It was a game he hated, but one he always played.
He hated this woman. Hated her. Regularly, he had to control the urge to blow up the entire compound. Sometimes the mere sight of her in the hallway or in the kitchen made Vegeta turn right around because she was that difficult to deal with. If she was attractive, Vegeta hadn't noticed. She was petulant, narcissistic and hormonal, and he was counting down the days until he could destroy the androids and move on with his life.
This is why the dream was so alarming. Nothing had changed from the day before. Bulma's demeanor toward him was as hostile as it always was. And it wasn't like she was putting some concerted effort to sexually entice him: She had worn the same sweatshirt three days in a row and hadn't washed her hair.
Believe it or not, Vegeta noticed these things. He noticed a lot of things about her, mostly because he hated the way she did almost everything.
After "The Dream," though, he started to wonder. That cord of animosity that ran between them wasn't as tight. The following morning, he sat alone in the Brief's kitchen, picking at a feast Bulma's mother had made for him the night before. He swallowed hard thinking about how completely alluring she was in that bathing suit.
He was equally aroused as he was disgusted. Vegeta wasn't picky when it came to women, but there was no way he could look past her explosive personality, even if it was to fuck for just one night. He hated her, right? She was a nuisance, a distraction.
As if summoned by Kami himself, Bulma sauntered into the kitchen without so much as looking at Vegeta. She seemed calm today, a stark difference from the sour mood she found herself in yesterday. Usually by now Vegeta would've already bombarded her with several requests relating to his training equipment. He actually did have a few things she needed to fix, but when he opened his mouth to bark out his daily demands, he became acutely aware of her lavender perfume and watched in mild fascination as she tucked a piece of air behind her ear.
Bulma was pouring herself a cup of coffee, completely oblivious to the fact Vegeta sat at the breakfast island eyeing her down like a piece of meat. When she finally caught him, she studied him in confusion.
"You okay?" She stirred in a splash of creamer, watching him as if he had grown a second head.
Vegeta grumbled to himself. Bulma rolled her eyes, took a sip of her coffee and reached for the morning paper. It was just her luck that the first section she pulled up was last night's sports scores. She tossed it back on the counter.
Vegeta continued to stare. He couldn't help it. The dream kept running through his mind. He wondered if underneath her sweatpants was a skimpy pair of black panties before mentally kicking himself.
"I'm fine, woman." He sneered at her with much more hostility than he intended. Bulma cocked her eyebrow in surprise.
"Geez, Vegeta, we haven't even exchanged two full sentences and you're already giving me an attitude."
He huffed and turned his attention back to his food. Bulma watched him resisting the urge to say something else–something mean, she figured–and shook her head. Vegeta loved a little verbal repartee in the morning, and Bulma always guessed it was because it got his brain going before he started warming up his body. Sometimes she took the bait because it was fun. Today was not that day.
Instead of waiting for him to formulate a stinging quip, she grabbed her cup of coffee and the rest of the paper, purposefully leaving behind the sports section, and headed down toward her laboratory.
That was it? She put up the white flag already? He wanted her to bite into him, rip a little flesh to remind him why he hated her so much. Visions of her in that bikini were starting to rile him up again–she couldn't just walk away now.
"Woman!" His voice shook the hallway. "I demand more coffee!"
He saw her stop and slowly crane her head over her shoulder, confusion spreading across her face. She turned her body and stepped back into the kitchen archway. "You rang?" She said mockingly, resting her shoulder on the curved wall.
"I require caffeine." Vegeta sat staring at her.
"You don't like coffee," she said flatly.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. How did she know that?
"I happen to like coffee very much."
Bulma laughed. "Oh, do you? Well then." She walked over to the machine, grabbed more coffee and another filter from the cupboard and poured in water. As the liquid brewed, she watched him incredulously. Vegeta, on the other hand, oscillated between imagining himself ripping open her sweatshirt to strangling her on the counter.
When it was done, Bulma poured him a cup and placed it on the counter in front of him. Lacing her fingers together, she rested her chin. "Go on then." She smiled wide. "Drink it."
Vegeta actually did hate coffee, but he panicked when she left the room. And before he knew it, he was calling out to her to come back. Steam swirled up and he brought it to his lips, slowly sucking in the bitter taste. In one gulp, he swallowed the entire contents of his cup. He hated the bitterness almost as much as he hated her. Acidity burned down his throat and he fought (unsuccessfully) to hide a wince. Bulma caught it and did nothing to hide her satisfaction.
"Delicious," he said with no emotion.
"Sure," she laughed to herself before heading back toward her lab.
He doesn't even like coffee, she thought to herself as she made her way down the hallway. When she woke up this morning, she sincerely hoped it was going to be one of those easy, simple days. All of her projects would magically get done in a reasonable amount of time, no one would mention her philandering ex-boyfriend and, most importantly, she could go the entirety of the day without wanting to flay someone alive.
It seemed the latter was the first domino to fall.
But coffee? Sure, Vegeta ate everything, but not once in the year or so that he had lived there with them did he ever once even touch the stuff. In fact, if she remembered correctly, it was in March that he opined about how horrible it smelled and how he didn't even want her to brew it in his presence. Vegeta was a weirdo, she told herself. Maybe he had heard somewhere that coffee helps with circulation or muscle mass or something stupid and now he's taking a keen interest. Or, more likely, he just wanted to piss her off. It was the first day in three weeks where she was actually feeling pretty good, so of course her ornery houseguest wanted to ruin it.
He truly was a thorn in her side. He was rude, arrogant and pompous. Everything she did was never up to his insurmountable standards, and even when it was, he never thanked her nor complimented her.
Gravity room? Built it from scratch. Drones that deploy energy beams that can kill a human man in mere seconds? Made them in an afternoon. On top of that, he had free reign of her house and took advantage of her mother and father's hospitality. What right did he have to be a dick to her all the time?
She threw off her sweatshirt, put on a lab coat and began lazily looking over plans for a new chip that would make Capsule Corp., cars safety features ten times better than their competitors. Not only was it designed to stop accidents before they happened with state-of-the-art sensor technology, it could pull feeds from other devices in the car. People seriously injured wouldn't even need to call for an ambulance–help would already be on the way.
It was a great, albeit somewhat simple idea, and Bulma was so close to perfecting it. She probably would've finished weeks ago had it not been for Vegeta throwing her off track every chance he got.
Bulma reminded himself that he was just a temporary guest, that one day he would be flying through space and time finding someone else to argue with. If this was her way of contributing to Earth's protection, then so be it.
Today, though, she was going to make progress on her chip, because in just a few weeks Capsule Corp., was planning its year-end party with all the accouterments, including a much-anticipated product launch. Nothing–not a Saiyan prince, bloodthirsty androids or anything in-between–was going to take that from her.