03 - Just This Once

The act of breathing was immense when 250 times Earth gravity was crushing his lungs. The gravity room burned a fierce unfriendly red. Vegeta liked the way it reflected his inner rage and how the intensity left him with little room for thought. Every ounce of concentration was needed to perform each movement precisely. Balancing on the tip of an index finger, he labored to complete his one-armed push-up regimen.

347.

348.

Sweat dripped off him, smacking into the floor with ferocious weight.

349.

I'm very good with my hands.

The memory of her words smacked into him with the same brutal force as the gravity. Bulma hadn't been lying. She had brought him to completion on the recovery room table within a matter of minutes, teasing him until he couldn't take it anymore. He exploded over her fingers with a strangled groan. She soothed him through it, deftly cleaning him up with her cloth and kissing the corner of his mouth.

"See? That wasn't so scary, was it, homeboy?"

Before he could puzzle out what a homeboy was, she was gone. She might have stitched him up, but she had left him in pieces.

He avoided her at all costs after that.

It wasn't that he was afraid of her (him, afraid? Ridiculous), or even the physical intimacy she offered. It was his own lack of control that disturbed him. He didn't know himself around her. Vegeta had spent his whole life schooling and disciplining his mind and body into being the perfect warrior. Every mission was his to triumph over, every peon and planet and skill-set his to master.

Then Bulma came along with her big blue eyes and swaying hips and had thrown his control out the fucking window, leaving him gasping and trembling in an identity crisis.

For fuck's sake. If he couldn't control himself around one woman, how was he supposed to control the legendary power of the Super Saiyan?

Concentrate!

His arm trembled as he attempted rep 350—

—and collapsed.

The GR echoed with the sound of his frustrated scream.

He cursed her, and her planet, and himself, and his life, and Kakarot just for good measure. He was supposed to be getting stronger, to fulfill his place and birthright and claim that elusive legendary power, yet he had never felt so weak or so helpless.

When he crawled into his bed that night, bruised and wrecked from training, he closed his eyes and prayed that they wouldn't open in the morning, just as they never should have done back on Namek.

~xox~

He stared at his breakfast listlessly, ignoring the weight of eyes upon him. His presence in the kitchen was an anomaly for Bulma and her parents. This hour of the morning usually found Vegeta training in the GR, empty dishes in the sink the only indication that he had stopped for food. But today, he couldn't motivate himself to go to that place of self-flagellation and defeat. It was pointless, futile, moronic.

He wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it.

Uncertainty was not something Vegeta often dealt with, for good reason: doubt was crippling. Hesitation got you killed. He learned young to throw himself head-first into everything with complete conviction. It had served him well, kept him alive right up until a certain blue planet nearly became his grave, just before a green planet did (if only for a hot minute).

He could feel something like panic creeping up his spine. Days had turned to weeks had turned to months since his mad training to attain Super Saiyan had began, and still he had nothing to show for his efforts. Sure, he could handle more gravity, blow up things with a little more destructive power than before, but what of it? It didn't compare to what Kakarot or that purple-haired whelp could do when they turned golden. It wasn't enough. He wasn't good enough. And time was slipping through his fingers as swiftly as his control of the situation was.

Vegeta's doubts weighed heavily on him like chains, and he found himself unable to move, staring at his empty dishes as if they could provide him some answers.

"Vegeta honey, are you still hungry?" Bulma's mother asked him in her too-cheery voice. "Do you want me to make you some pancakes?"

Vegeta's eyes slid up to look at the matriarch before — against his will — gliding over to the daughter. Bulma was watching him with calculating eyes. He could see the cogs turning in her brain.

Uncomfortable under both women's scrutiny, Vegeta looked back down at the counter and grunted with indifference. Mrs. Briefs took that as a 'yes' and started fussing in the kitchen.

Minutes later, hot steaming pancakes towered on his plate. He wasn't especially hungry but eating at least gave him something to do.

Mrs. Briefs tittered in pleasure, patting him on the shoulder. "Oh, it's so nice to have someone in the house with such a healthy appetite. Look at those two, wasting away all day with their experiments," she lamented, indicating her husband and daughter.

Vegeta raised his eyes to where Dr. Briefs and Bulma occupied a small table by the window, consuming their liquid breakfasts. Dr. Briefs drank his coffee, largely ignoring them for his newspaper. Bulma still had eyes only for Vegeta, sipping her coffee in quiet contemplation.

He snorted around his mouthful of pancake, not agreeing with Mrs. Briefs' assessment. Bulma wasting away? Hardly. The woman might have had a waist so slender he could wrap his hands around it, but her clothing stretched to capacity about her bust and hips.

Bulma raised a delicate brow in his direction.

Fuck. He was staring.

Vegeta looked down and shoveled another forkful of pancake into his mouth, chewing on it sourly.

Breakfast dragged on, the sun rising higher in the sky and still Vegeta did not move. Dr. Briefs finished his newspaper and with a peck on his wife's cheek, he left to start his day. Mrs. Briefs inquired if Vegeta needed any more food, to which he merely grunted again. She interpreted this as a no, patting his arm (which he bore well, he thought), saying, "Okay honey, you just ask if you need anything," and off she went.

Which left only him and her.

Bulma took a last sip of her coffee and placed her mug down.

"Taking the morning off?" she asked, finally addressing him.

He frowned, his hands tightening about knife and fork, his stomach churning from the sickly-sweet food now sitting uncomfortably in his belly. His scowl intensified when she stood and made a B-line right for him, stopping opposite his seat. Her hip canted to the side and she bestowed on him a knowing smile, seeing right through his half-eaten pancakes for what they were: a sad attempt to delay the inevitable.

"If you're not busy, come with me. I want to show you something."

He looked at her skeptically.

Her smile widened. "I promise to keep my hands to myself. Just this once," she added with a sly wink.

He ground his teeth, struggling to fight back a blush. It was infuriating how she did that, twisting him up with a few lewd words. He should tell her to fuck off… but she was dangling before him that which he badly sought: an excuse not to train.

Pushing aside his plate with disgust, Vegeta stood up and followed Bulma deeper into the house away from the GR that clawed at his back, howling with his inner demons.

~xox~