I wake up stiff and sore, and somehow even happier than yesterday. Carefully disentangling myself from Vegeta and Kakarot, I look down at them, sleeping so peacefully. Well, not exactly peacefully…Kakarot snores louder than anyone I've ever heard, and Vegeta's tail twitches irritably, but other than that…

My brother has curled himself over our prince's body, almost possessively. His head is neatly tucked under Vegeta's chin, and one arm and leg are flung over the smaller man heavily. I laugh softly to myself as I shake out my hair and pad out of the cave, bare feet tingling in the morning's new snow.

The nearby stream is shockingly cold, and bits of ice stick in my hair as I dunk my head for an early morning wake-up. My tail bristles with the chill, but I ignore my protesting nerves as I sit down in the ice water and begin scrubbing the remnants of last night off my stomach and thighs. My skin is turning bright red - from the temperature or the scrubbing, I can't tell. I run my tongue experimentally over my teeth to check for debris, and then frown at the familiar taste.

Blood.

Did I bite my tongue last night? I can't remember, but I try to as I gather and handful of stream water and rinse out my mouth thoroughly. I just hope I didn't bite Kakarot, he's really not ready for something like that. I still have more to explain to him about how we Saiyans do things.

I'm thinking so hard I almost miss the raised voices from the direction of the cave. But they slowly filter into my consciousness and I stand hurriedly, shaking out my wet hair and tail. As I trot over to the cave entrance I can begin to make out words. It's mostly Vegeta.

"What…you…doing?!"

Some quiet reply from my brother.

"I can't…you did this!"

"Jeez, Vegeta, I don't…the big deal is!"

"You don't see what the big deal is?! You IDIOT!"

At this point, I slip into the cave, to see the back of Vegeta, his hands on his hips, his tail thrashing the back of his thighs angrily. Kakarot is standing in front of him, his face unhappy with confusion. He looks up as I enter, some relief washing across his features.

"What the hell is going on here, Vegeta?" I snarl angrily at my prince, and he whirls to face me, returning my snarl full force.

"This is going on," he growls, lifting his chin to reveal his neck and touching his forefinger to his inner thigh. Oh shit.

"Oh, shit."

"So I see you, at least, know the import of what happened last night," my prince hisses at me, and I nod dumbly as I stare at the two matching sets of bite marks at throat and groin. Well, at least the mystery of the morning mouthful of blood is solved.

"We…we marked you," I manage, and my brother cuts in impatiently.

"What does that mean, Raditz?" he asks, looking about ready to pull his hair out. "Vegeta keeps yelling at me that it wasn't my place, but I didn't hear him complaining last night!"

And that's really the crux of it. Not that we marked Vegeta, though that must have been irksome enough to him, but that he let us do it. There's a whole set of implications that go with that kind of willingness, none of which would please my prince.

"Well, essentially…" I try to think of it in human terms, find a way to explain while my prince narrows his eyes and glares at me, his arms crossed across a chest that, even now, stirs the fires of my libido. "Essentially we married him, Kakarot."

"What?!" My brother joins our prince in staring at me, but he seems more shocked than anything else. "I can't be married…I mean, I already am married! ChiChi and I aren't even divorced yet!"

I shrug helplessly as Kakarot begins pacing. "Oh, man, what am I gonna tell Gohan? What am I gonna tell Goten?"

"I think neither of them will be as shocked as you might think," I venture, but my brother persists on looking panicked.

"I see why you're so upset, now, Vegeta!" he continues, looking down at the prince anxiously. "But I had no idea, last night…I mean, I wasn't thinking…it just felt so right!"

Vegeta hisses at that, and turns, catching Kakarot in a hard blow across the face. "IDIOT!" He's speechless with rage, a new one on me, and he clenches his fists furiously, torn between hitting my brother again or screaming. He settles on neither, instead snatching up his bag of clothes and storming out of the cave, blasting off into the sky as soon as he hits the snowline.

I sigh, and haul out my own bag, pulling some clean clothes from it and beginning to dress. Kakarot interrupts me, laying his hand on my shoulder. "What the hell is going on, Raditz?"

"It's going to take some serious explaining," I warn him. "Better get dressed first, and I'll explain over breakfast. Okay?"

As I suspect, the thought of food is the one thing to distract him from the latest disaster. Nodding, he begins to scramble into a pair of jeans, then a loose t-shirt. We gather the rest of our things, and Kakarot wraps an arm around my waist, placing two fingers to his forehead. Oh, instant transmission.

We appear in front of two startled businessmen, in what looks like a big city. I gape, still not used this method of transportation. And why did Kakarot pick a city?

"I'm too impatient to hunt," he explains, as though reading my mind. "This way, we can order something, and talk while we're waiting for it. Okay?"

I nod, turning to see that we are, indeed, in front of some sort of restaurant, with a garishly blue roof. After entering, we're seated quickly near the back by a somewhat nervous waitress who keeps eyeing our tails. Luckily the place is only sparsely populated. We order, and the amount of food seems to make the waitress even more nervous; she hurries away and I see her whispering to one of the other waiters at the front, glancing back over her shoulder at us every now and then. I resist the urge to growl and bare my teeth at her, figuring as long as brings us the food and leaves us alone, I don't have any reason to hassle her.

"So," Kakarot begins, leaning his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his hands. "What exactly did we do last night? And why is Vegeta so pissed about it? I mean, besides the obvious."

I lean back, wondering where to begin first. Probably with the whole marking process…"Okay, you know how I said marking someone was like getting married?" He nods. "Well, think about marriage. It's more than just two people being committed to each other, right?"

"Yeah…"

"When you get married, you generally do it because you love someone, because you have some history together, right?"

"Yeah…well, sometimes. I mean, some people get married because someone is pregnant. Or for political reasons. Or because their parents want them to be married." I rub my chin thoughtfully.

"Yeah, we have marriage like that on Vegeta-sei, too. But marking…well, it's like when you get married for love, I guess. But it's different than with humans. On Vegeta-sei, marked pairs are considered special…" I try to think of a way to say everything I want to, but keep it simple enough for someone who hasn't grown up with the concept.

"Different how?"

"Well, for one thing, marking has a hell of a lot more to do with instinct than conscious thought. I mean, you can go into a relationship, and decide that at some point you want to mark your partner, or be marked, but just biting won't do it. There has to be more involved…there has to be deep passion, compatibility, as well as real commitment to each other."

"What happens if there isn't?" Kakarot looks fascinated by this whole thing; he almost seems to have forgotten that we're talking about something we've done.

"Well, if someone was to bite another without that, it would just be a bite. It would hurt a bit, but no bond would exist. But if two…or three, or whatever…Saiyans decide they want to be marked or mark, if they're ready for it, when they have sex one of them will emit a certain musk, a smell…it triggers something." I rub the back of my neck tiredly.

"A smell?"

"Yeah, it's actually pretty subtle. You don't notice it on a conscious level, but it drives the other partner into an almost frenzy…which ends in biting."

Kakarot considers all of this carefully, still leaning on his hands, then he sits back heavily. "So when we were biting Vegeta and drinking his blood, that was because he was spewing out some kind of musk that drove us crazy?"

"Y-Your food!" the waitress squeaks as she stares at my brother in a sort of horror. We had been so busy talking we hadn't even noticed her come up…and we both have to be pretty involved not to notice an enormous platter of food!

Kakarot smiles sunnily at the waitress as she begins setting plates on the table, trembling hard. I wonder idly if this is his act again, or if he really doesn't know that what we're talking about would probably be considered extremely disturbing to most humans. "Thanks, we're starved!" he chimes happily.

She tears her eyes away from him, and mutters something incoherent, daring a glance over at me. I smile slowly, revealing canines far longer than the average human's, and flick my tail at her. She gasps, and backs away from the table, scurrying like a frightened mouse into the back.

There are about fifteen minutes of busy silence and Kakarot and I work on devouring all the food in front of us. The waitress keeps her distance, and we finish blessedly uninterrupted. Kakarot sits back with a contented sigh.

"Were our parents marked?" he asks suddenly, smiling as I nod.

"Yeah, they were considered pretty…passionate, even by Saiyan standards," I admit. Kakarot directs the conversation back to before we were interrupted by food.

"So what was Vegeta so pissed about? I mean, if he was giving off this smell, and everybody involved has to be…" here he blushes and stammers, "i-in love and all."

I smile at him gently, snaking my tail out under the table to stroke soothingly along his thigh. "Not so comfortable with being in love with Vegeta?" I ask slyly.

"W-well, it's a lot to get used to." He sighs, and slides further down in his seat, sticking out one long leg to rest it on my bench, calf pressed warmly against my thigh. "I mean, it seems so fast! But then, maybe it isn't. I've known Vegeta for a long time now…I think maybe there was always something there." He turns his eyes down in a charmingly shy manner, and I pat his leg.

"Weren't you the one who told me you propositioned him before?" I ask carefully, and he nods slowly.

"Yeah, but I think that was more about sex…I mean, I wasn't willing to leave ChiChi for him, so it couldn't have been love, could it?" He seems puzzled himself.

"Maybe you weren't ready to deal with it, yet. I mean, being in love with another man, and with someone who seemed to hate you…" Kakarot had talked with me before about his previous relationship with Vegeta, how our cold prince always seemed angry with him, always wanting to challenge him to fight. I had snickered at the time, thinking what those signs would have looked like if Kakarot had been aware of Saiyan courting rituals…

"Maybe not. But I guess the whole question is rendered pretty moot now, huh?" he asks ruefully. "I mean, good old instincts sorta took care of all that."

"Yeah," I grin at him.

"So you never answered my question…what's Vegeta so mad about? Is he having a problem facing it all, too?"

This is the part I dread having to explain. "Partially…but it's more complex than that."

"All this Saiyan stuff is!" Kakarot exclaims in consternation, his tail flicking agitatedly under the table. I catch it neatly, and stroke it lightly. My brother immediately closes his eyes, and begins purring deep in his chest. He slowly rubs his bare foot along the outside of my thigh, and I, too, close my eyes at the touch. Lovely.

"It mostly has to do with who does the biting," I explain. "There's an implied…dominance…with being the biter."

"Dominance? Uh-oh…" Kakarot fixes me with a troubled black gaze, and I nod back to him.

"Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not just dominance, there's a whole mix of things that go into it. Strength is part of it, but nowhere near the most important part. I've seen marked pairs in which the person bitten is much weaker, physically, than their partner. But they were definitely in charge of the relationship!" I laugh, thinking of my friend Shallot…she was worlds stronger than her husband, but he could quiet her with a look. And needed to often, as she was pretty loud mouthed. Both gone, now.

"So if it's not strength, what else is it?" My brother looks determined to learn everything he can about this.

"Well, another part of it is the need to protect. Which I guess probably plays a big part in our own thing with Vegeta...I mean, you've been the protector of the Earth for a long time, right? And I was raised knowing I was going to serve the prince some day. I was his guard when he was a kid, and now…" I sigh. "I guess that impulse never went away, if last night is any indicator."

"The problem being that Vegeta doesn't think he needs protection," Kakarot comments wryly, and again, I have to re-evaluate him. He can be surprising insightful, at times.

"Yep. I have to ask…who initiated the relationship between you two, this time around?"

"Oh, it was me," Kakarot answers effortlessly. "I…uh, I got a little mad one night when he had been telling me how stupid I am again," here he rolls his eyes, "and I, uh…I kissed him."

"Remind me to piss you off more often," I grin darkly at him, gripping his tail more firmly, and giving it a little tug.

"Raditz!" he exclaims indignantly, a blush splashing to his cheeks.

"What?" I ask, all innocence as I stroke his tail firmly and watch him squirm in his seat.

"Not here!" He looks around frantically, and I relent with a laugh, settling for coiling the furry length around my wrist and continuing my explanation.

"Well, the one who bites is also usually the initiator in the relationship, the one who is more action oriented, at least as far as romance is concerned." My brother nods at that thoughtfully, moving his foot almost unconsciously from the outside of my thigh to rest between them, toes resting lightly over the zipper of my jeans. I raise my eyebrows at him, but he seems unaware of the whole situation.

"That must have really ticked him off," he muses, "That his own body betrayed him like that!"

I nod, shifting under his foot. "Yeah, and knowing Vegeta, he's taking it the worst way possible. If what you tell me is accurate, he's always had a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to you. And me, well I'm not even in your guys' league, power level-wise! That I bit him, too…well…" I trail off awkwardly, shifting again, and Kakarot suddenly pushes his toes firmly against my groin. Okay, so maybe he is aware of what he was doing.

But he just smiles at me, and presses for me to continue. "Well what?"

"He's my prince!" I exclaim. "I should have known better! It's royalty's right to claim whoever they want…and they're always the ones doing the marking. It was that way for King Vegeta, and his mother, and her mother. I'm nowhere near worthy enough…" I put my head in my hands, uncomfortably aware of the twin emotions of shame and arousal as Kakarot's tail slithers sinuously over my wrist.

"Raditz." I look up, and he smiles at me. "You don't really feel that way."

I think about that, honestly think and evaluate my emotions, and I realize he's right. I don't really feel unworthy of Vegeta, it's more of a reflex thought from too many years ago. What I really think is that Vegeta's being his usual pain-in-the-ass self, and he's damn lucky to have my brother, and I ain't so bad a deal thrown into the whole mess. In fact, I'm a damn good deal. I saw the way those people were looking at me in the club…and more importantly, I saw how my prince was looking at me these last two nights.

"You're right, Kakarot," I decide, yanking demandingly on his tail. He laughs as he slips under the table, landing on his ass. Still chuckling, he slides back up on my side, next to me, and I address him seriously as he winds his tail around my waist. "But we both know Vegeta is going to pout for awhile before he gets used to this whole idea, so we should give him a few days to cool off."

Kakarot agrees, adding, "We better find somewhere else to stay for awhile, since we can't go back home…well, not home, it's Chichi's now, I guess. But we can't go back there, and we can't go back to Capsule Corps…"

I nod sagely, and contribute absolutely nothing as my brother thinks, except the feel of my tongue sliding roughly along the line of his jaw, my tail sneaking up the back of his shirt. "I know!" he exclaims suddenly, "We can use the Lookout! I haven't seen Dende in ages…"

I nod, not really paying attention, too distracted by the heady aroma of my brother's hair, still holding the pungent aroma of last night's sex. "Raditz!" he exclaims as I nibble at the back of his neck.

"What?" I ask around my mouthful. Snorting, he grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. I arch an eyebrow in query, and he just shakes his head, smiling, and pulls me in for a deep kiss with lots of tongue. I lean happily into him, only vaguely registering the shocked and indignant noises from a few booths away.