The Craving

Disclaimer

DBZ, its characters, and concepts are the copyrights and/or trademarks of FUNimation (and/or Akira Toriyama) and are used here for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The only characters we created are Brik and Sharly, who we humbly offer as a sacrifice to whoever wants to play with them. Feel free to bend, spindle, mutilate, and/or even kill them. All we ask is that you send us a copy of whatever story you use them in. (Especially the spindle, we want to know what that is.)

Chapter 1: Symptoms

Bulma cracked open the door and peered around into Vegeta's room. Her eyes took in the spartan quarters that the current occupant had made no additions to whatsoever since he had been given them several months ago. If she was dealing with a normal person, she might think this was odd, but Vegeta was the Prince of all Saiyans and either lacked the desire or the imagination to acquire many personal affects. It almost seemed, even though he really had nowhere else to go, that he wasn't planning on staying long.

But still, despite his alien nature and aggressive personality, or maybe because of it, Bulma found herself quite attracted to him.

The object of her affection was sprawled face-down across his bed, obviously having been too exhausted from the nonstop torment he called his training to change out of his minimal clothing: a singed pair of rather tight black shorts and tennis shoes. From her place by the door, she could hear a soft, low snoring coming from the Saiyan's throat.

Smiling to herself, Bulma sighed and closed the door quietly.

Vegeta groggily raised his head from his pillow to find that he was sprawled facedown on his bed. He groaned softly, every muscle aching from his intense training and his skin feeling sticky. He realized somewhere in the back of his mind, that he had once again, in his exhaustion, neglected to take a shower before crashing onto his mattress. Somewhere closer to the forefront of his mind, he registered the dream that he had woken up during. He usually didn't dream while training; pushing his body to the limit and beyond seemed to take his energy away from that simple habit, so it seemed strange to him that he should be having the impression that that Earth woman Bulma was in them.

Deeming speculation not worth the effort, he painfully heaved himself off his bed and headed for the shower. After the deluge brought him more awareness and a slight relief to his soreness, Vegeta made his way downstairs to find the Briefs family already sitting down for their breakfast. The blonde woman who was Bulma's mother was babbling incessantly about something. She never had anything useful to say, so Vegeta didn't bother listening. Instead, he went into the kitchen, piled the prepared food onto a plate and civilly sat down at the table.

"So, did you sleep well?" Bulma asked cheerfully in a vain attempt to start a conversation.

Vegeta only grunted in between mouthfuls of food as he shoveled in his large portions, not bothering with anything approaching good manners.

This, however, didn't seem to discourage the annoying woman in the least, as she continued to carry on a conversation. Bulma seemed not to notice that the Saiyan didn't care what she had to prattle about, though he did find himself thinking about how nice she smelled today.

Vegeta shook his head to clear it. Why should he care how the woman smelled, as long as it wasn't offensive to him? After scarfing down the last of his breakfast, he got up and left for the space pod to begin his day's training. Before he was through the door, Bulma called out to him, "Oh, Vegeta! Do you really think you should be training today? I mean, you haven't healed from that last time you trashed that ship."

He stopped in his tracks and snarled over his shoulder, "As long as I can stand, I can fight, woman. Injuries are a pittiling excuse to pause my training."

"Just so long as those 'pittiling excuses' don't land you in intensive care again," Bulma shot back at him.

Vegeta just growled irritably and continued on his way.

He trained for hours. Pushing himself to the very limits of his endurance, and beyond, until exhaustion forced him to take a rest. Kneeling in the middle of the pod, Vegeta inhaled the smell of his own sweat with each heavy breath.

"I wonder what Bulma would smell like sweaty," Vegeta wondered to himself. Surprised at this strange musing, he once again shook his head to clear it of the alien thought. He briefly considered the possibility that he might be working himself too hard and was starting to have delusions because of it. Not that it mattered, for he would not relent until he had achieved his goal. Overcoming delusions could only make him stronger.

A few hours later, Vegeta was training at 400 times Earth's gravity when the gravity simulator suddenly cut off. Since he had been levitating in the air at the time, quite an exertion when he weighed that much, he shot straight into the ceiling of the pod, then bounced back to the floor, making huge dents in both. From his prone position on the floor he stared up into the worried face of Bulma.

"What is it?" he growled in annoyance and slight pain, carefully lifting himself into a sitting position. It was just like that woman to interrupt him like this.

Suddenly, a loud banging at the door informed him of the reason, causing the woman to jump. "Bulma! I know you're in there! Come on out so we can talk!" shouted the male voice on the other side of the door.

Vegeta looked at the door, then Bulma, who was making frantic motions for him not to answer it, then got up and walked to the door, opening it to stand face to face with the intruder that was on one of the lower steps leading to the entrance. "What the hell do you want?" the Saiyan warrior snarled menacingly.

"Uh," the disgusting human male that was easily twice Vegeta's size started, "is Bulma in there?"

"What's it to you?"

"Well, we used to date, I heard she broke up with her boyfriend, and I, uh . . . want her back," he said, a little uncertainly under the warrior's menacing stare.

Vegeta shot a glance at Bulma standing out of sight of the doorway. She had a worried expression on her face and was shaking her head vigorously from side to side. "It seems obvious to me that she does not want you back," he said, "I suggest you leave."

"If she's in there, I'm gonna find her, and no little shrimp is gonna stop me!" the imbecile climbed the stairs but encountered the unflinching Vegeta still in the doorway. The man tried to push the Saiyan aside. He might as well have tried to shove a brick wall. The guy finally backed down a little bit after working up quite a sweat. "Bulma, come out here! Who is this guy?"

Bulma cautiously walked into view behind Vegeta, "Well, you know I broke up with Yamcha . . . This is my new boyfriend, Vegeta. And I think you've been very rude to him."

"What, you'd take this porcupine-haired pipsqueak over me?"

At that point, Vegeta's hand shot out, grabbing the idiot's jugular and lifting him a few inches off the step, "You annoy me, insect. I suggest you leave, before I swat you." Then, without any effort, he flung the fool five feet from the ship.

The man lay on his back for a moment, dazed, then sat up, looked back at Vegeta, who was still standing in the doorway of the ship, and scrambled away as fast as he could.

After the human was out of sight, Vegeta turned around, satisfied to be rid of one pest, only to be hugged by another. His skin felt hot where she touched it, as if he was being hugged by a furnace. It was at once almost painful, yet strangely comforting . . . almost relaxing. Her hair smelled nice . . . Surprised by all this, he tensed.

"Oh thank you, Vegeta!" she squealed, squeezing him tight, unaware of the odd sensations she was imposing upon him. He broke free easily and held her at arm's length, which didn't help, since he was still touching her. He then dropped his arms and folded them, assuming the familiar pose of the stern Saiyan Prince.

"Do you mind telling me what that was all about?" he said gruffly, quickly regaining his composure.

"Well, that was Brik, a guy I dated in college," the blue haired woman started, "He seemed to like my money more than me, so I dumped him after only a few weeks of dating. He didn't take it very well. This is actually the first time he's harassed me since I started going back out with Yamcha," she smiled, "He tried acouple times, but Yamcha quickly convinced him to back off." Her expression turned to one of worry, "You don't mind I called you my boyfriend, do you?"

"If that is all you wanted, you should leave and let me get back to my training," he grumbled after she was finished, ignoring the question completely.

"Well, you don't have to be so snippy about it," she said, taken aback, "Have a nice day," she added venomously as she exited the pod.

Vegeta closed the door behind her, then leaned on the control console, trying to make sense of what just happened. "What is that woman doing to cause such reactions from me? Am I allergic to her or something?" He felt his face. It was still hot. He wasn't sure what he should do, but he had the feeling that a cold shower might help. Instead he tried to push the problem aside by resuming his training.

That night he collapsed onto his bed only to wake the next morning with images of Bulma that were even more vivid than the previous morning. He showered in cold water until the images seemed to leave. He went down to breakfast only to be met with another shock: either he was hallucinating, or Bulma had neglected to dress herself that morning.

Vegeta wasn't quite sure which option he preferred.

Once more, he shook his head to clear it. The Saiyan looked up again to see that it had, indeed, been a delusion. He wasn't sure whether to call it a relief or a disappointment, however he was relieved to see that none of the Brief family had noticed him just yet.

He got a plate-load of food and once again sat with Bulma and her parents at the table, trying to look calm and normal. Having, of course, not seen himself in that state before, he wasn't certain that he'd got it right. He barely noticed some odd glances directed at him from Bulma and her father, her mother being too vacuous to notice anything strange, as he shoveled down his food more quickly than usual and tried desperately not to look at Bulma again. For some reason, his sense of smell seemed to be heightened, and Vegeta could detect her scent strongly amidst all the aromas of food that tried to obscure it. It was a nice smell, though, sort of sweet, yet holding an interesting spice slightly below the surface . . .

This was starting to get on Vegeta's nerves.

When he left in his usual direction, it was not to go to his training ship, but to the medical wing of the Capsule Corp. complex. Something was wrong with him, and he was going to find out what.

Vegeta stared at the medical readouts on the screen before him. Something was definitely wrong. He had just done a full medical scan of himself and brought up a record from earlier to compare it to. There was some sort of chemical imbalance in his entire bloodstream, including what the computer considered an unidentified hormone, but compared it to certain human hormones dealing with fertility and reproduction. He also noted that his heart rate, while slightly above human normal most of the time, would double whenever he so much as thought about that accursed woman Bulma.

He sat back and took a little time to mull over the information. This reminded him of something that his caretaker Nappa used to tease that weakling Raditz about: at some point in a male Saiyan's life, if he had not yet found a mate, he went through something comparable to animals in heat. The body would seek out the nearest unattached, compatible female and drive itself to mate with said female.

But that was impossible. He couldn't be going through fa'kir . . .

Could he?

Just then, Bulma walked into the room behind him causing him to turn around in his chair, "Oh, hello, Vegeta. I didn't expect to sack you here."

She didn't just say that. He knew she didn't just say that. But that was what he heard.

Vegeta's heart started to race. His mind started a war with his body on whether to leave the room as quickly as possible and get away from Bulma, or get as close as possible to her, in the carnal sense. Failing to reach a prompt decision, he sat frozen right where he was, trying very hard not to look like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, taking an interest in the medical scanner and stepping closer.

"Nothing that's any concern of yours," he grumbled, turning around and clearing the screen before she could catch a better look. Doing his best to ignore her, he forced his legs to carry him up and out of the room. As soon as he left, he headed straight for his quarters again; intent upon taking another cold shower, wondering if there was any liquid nitrogen nearby that he could douse himself with.

Having finished his second cold shower in four hours, Vegeta immediately headed for the training ship he had come to think of as his, hoping against hope that he might find refuge there from his body's desires.

This, the Saiyan soon discovered, was not to be, as an errant fantasy distracted him long enough for one of the training robots to blindside him with an energy blast.

That was it. This had to be stopped. Vegeta knew he had to get away from this place and the distraction of Bulma and her sea blue hair and soft, white, alabaster skin . . .

With a scream of frustration, he slammed his head against the floor, leaving a nicely sized dent.

It was then that he realized that the main, though not the only, reason for this attraction was that she, this blue-haired, blue-eyed vixen, was the closest, unattached, compatible female. The remedy, therefore, would be to go where there were no females, compatible or otherwise, to distract him.

Pleased with himself about finding a solution, he loaded the space pod with a few extra sets of body armor and as much food as he thought he would need for his journey. Then he left, without so much as a backward glance or a "goodbye," knowing that either might weaken even his considerable resolve.