Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball or any of its related properties.

Notes: The standard plot of the Three Year Fic has Bulma being the one who's smitten, but I never got that impression from canon. Rather, I think it's biologically probable that Saiyans developed more intense monogamous instincts than humans due to their greater energy needs (canonically, they eat much more than humans), and a period of helpless infancy that's comparable to that of humans. This would require lower fertility from females and higher parental investment from males - hence, pair bonding. So this fic basically explores the opposite extreme of that scenario, along with the broader implications of saiyan sexuality re: their highly regimented militaristic culture. This fic take Dragon Ball Minus as canon.

Hopefully it's not too exposition-heavy, but I did indulge myself. :) (This is a slightly censored version of the fic. For the full version, check out my AO3 account.)

Futile

Chapter One

In hindsight, perhaps he shouldn't have agreed to live with the Woman.

Vegeta's interactions with females had been severely limited over the course of his life. Frieza rarely enlisted them into his ranks, preferring to use the enticement of conquered females to secure greater loyalty from his men - lustful weaklings that they were. Those that Vegeta had encountered, furthermore, were usually from species so different from his own that he could scarcely identify them as females without being told.

Nappa had often spoken longingly of Saiyan females: of their strength, their intelligence, their callous, brutal tenacity. Vegeta's own recollections of them were hazy at best. He'd never even met the female who had provided the egg with which he had been conceived. Nappa had also warned him against fraternization with alien females, saying that it would distract him from his path as a warrior. It was one of the few pieces of advice Vegeta had ever bothered to heed from the oaf - more out of happenstance than any kind respect for the man. Vegeta had simply never been tempted.

He still wasn't tempted.

But it really wasn't any wonder why the Woman was...distracting.

She was smiling at him, just then, amusement dancing in her ridiculous too-light eyes. Human eyes, all too easily damaged by ultra-violet radiation. She would've gone blind on planet Vegeta.

"And what exactly is so damn amusing?" he snapped, unable to keep the irritation from his voice even though he knew it only encouraged these little stunts.

Indeed, her smile widened. "Oh nothing," she replied.

Vegeta closed the refrigeration device more forcefully than necessary, a wrapped unit of meat pressed between two slices of processed grain clutched in his hand. At least humans had the same preference for cooked foods that Saiyans did.

He scowled, tempted to point out the obvious lie, but decided not to waste his breath. The fact that he'd spoken to her without prompting when he could have been eating was already too much energy wasted.

Kakarrot was still alive, after all - flaunting his superiority on some distant planet - while Vegeta took the time to indulge the inscrutable whims of some insufferable human female.

He'd killed allies for less.

"Cat got your tongue?" she said, raising a slender brow.

He didn't know what a cat was, but he knew a taunt when he heard it. "You're lucky you're useful, woman."

The amusement left her eyes. "You're lucky I'm so generous and forgiving." She crossed her arms, glaring at him. "You'd better bear that in mind before you threaten me, Vegeta."

Satisfied with having rattled her composure, he simply smirked before exiting the dining area.

It was the smell that had brought him there.

Sweet and spicy and tangy, and not unlike a species of carnivorous flower that Vegeta had once encountered on a mission that had left him paralyzed for days. It made his head swim pleasantly.

Not even an elite Saiyan warrior could help giving into its pull.

And now here he was, watching the weakling human putting on an utterly lewd display with the Damn Woman.

Vegeta was well used to the vulgarity of lesser species. He'd witnessed more than his fair share while working under Frieza, even trying to avoid it.

But there was something about this human depravity that left him feeling particularly unsettled. They looked so much like Saiyans, after all, and yet acted so...wantonly. Perfectly useful bloodlust channeled into lust for far less noble endeavors.

The weakling had a hand between the Woman's legs, his mouth suckling at the lobe of her ear. She was making little gasping noises and moans, spreading her legs wider. Please, he heard her murmur. Don't tease me, Yamcha.

The smell, he realized, was caused by her...arousal. She was getting sexually excited by a man who had been killed by a single Saibaman.

Neither of them noticed his presence, or weren't deterred if they did. The latter possibility made disgust twist deep down in his gut. Utterly shameless.

He really should just destroy this damned planet and be done with it.

As the smell grew stronger still, it took entirely too much effort for him to jerk his gaze away. And, when he finally returned to the gravity chamber, he turned the settings up higher than he ever had before.

He wasn't sure why he asked her the question. Her motivations and feelings were meaningless to him.

And yet, it had slipped out, earning him a quizzical look and a raised eyebrow.

He supposed he just wanted her to make a bit more sense.

"Why did I invite you to stay?" She tapped her chin. "I guess you can say that I find you interesting. I mean, it's not every day that you get to meet an evil alien who can blow up planets."

That actually made the corners of his lips twitch up. "You were terrified of me on Namek," he pointed out. He'd only been peripherally aware of her presence then, but he could certainly recall the fear in her eyes when she'd looked at him.

He'd found it...pleasant.

She smiled crookedly. "Oh, without a doubt. I even had a nightmare about you coming to kill me for helping Gohan and Krillin take that one dragon ball."

The hint of a smile on his own face grew wider. "It was a nightmare grounded in realism." He pressed, "So, why the change of heart? I haven't had one."

A shrug. "I'm not sure. A hunch, maybe?"

Vegeta scoffed. "I killed your lover with a Saibaman, and I'll destroy this planet the moment it ceases to be of use to me. Are all human women so suicidally forgiving?"

Bulma shrugged again. "You know, Piccolo killled Krillin once." She frowned slightly. "Well, it was actually Piccolo's father, but they're technically the same person. And the current Piccolo only stopped trying to take over the world after Radditz showed up." Her smile returned. "Point being, it's silly to hold grudges when you have Son Goku for a friend. Especially when the dragon balls exist." Her smile turned sly. "But don't get me wrong, Vegeta: If you hurt anyone I care about again, I'll make sure you regret it."

"Oh really?" he said, smirking. "And how precisely would you accomplish that?"

She walked up to him, then, still smiling that devious smile, and leaned in very close. It took a considerable amount of control not to flinch away. "That's a secret," she whispered, breath fanning out against his ear and the scent of her - a muted version of her intoxicating arousal - wafting around him.

She kissed his cheek, then, her lips achingly soft, before finally pulled back. Her smile was now sweet, but there was still a hint of something in her eyes. Promise, more than threat.

She walked past him without another word.

By the time Vegeta had been conceived, Saiyans had long since abandoned the primitive reproductive behavior of their ancestors.

It had been Frieza's innovation, in fact: grow infants in incubation pods, or place them in one after birth. This served the duel purpose of allowing the parents to keep fighting when the child was too helpless to care for itself, while also discouraging the ties of blood that lay at the heart of most ancient Saiyan conflicts. Planet Sadal had been destroyed because of a blood feud gone too far. Loyalty to kin had held Saiyans back for millennia.

Indeed, Vegeta had only met his own father for the first time at the age of three. And even then, he had found himself drawn to the man. It had not taken long for the word 'papa' to feel natural on his tongue.

It was a display of weakness that still brought him shame when he thought of it.

Even those rare lower-class Saiyans who were conceived the traditional way didn't meet their parents for years. Many, like Kakarrot, never met their parents at all - dispatched off-world before their weakness could tempt their parents into coddling them. This had also been the fate of Vegeta's own weakling of a brother.

For all that Vegeta despised the late tyrant, he couldn't fault his logic in this regard. Saiyans had more potential as warriors than any other species. To be saddled with pointless attachments driven by obsolete reproductive methods only hampered that potential.

So yes, Vegeta recognized what was happening to him. But, as a Saiyan elite, he knew he could resist.

Certainly, he knew he could just kill the Damn Woman, if she proved to be too troublesome.

At the moment, however, the danger she posed was outweighed by her usefulness. Nobody else on this godsforsaken mudball could provide him such excellent equipment to train with. Not even her father. In truth, he wasn't sure that there were many in the entire cosmos that rivaled the Woman in terms of sheer intellect.

For now, he would allow her to live.

He managed to resist it for a very long time, all things considered.

When he'd caught the scent of her excitement, but knew the weakling wasn't present.

When he'd been lying in the infirmary, drugged, frustrated and in pain, and she'd been sleeping at the desk by his bedside, the smell of her permeating the entire room.

When she drew him into one of their verbal sparring matches, all sharp, acerbic wit and relentless challenge.

Every time, he'd managed to keep his distance.

But when she came to him, pressing her soft, soft lips against his own, slipping her tongue into his mouth, his elite willpower failed him.

His sense of time had left him, then, elongating certain moments while rendering others immaterial. One moment, she was pulling him to her sleeping chamber. The next, his face was buried between her legs, where that glorious scent was strongest. He shuddered when he pulled away the fabric to finally taste her there, the movements of his mouth and tongue informed by the growing intensity of her flavor.

"You're not a good man," she purred, hands buried in his hair. "But you can be such a good boy, can't you?"

The praise made him shudder again, and his hands shook as he used them to spread her thighs wider apart.

Then he filled her, over and over, as she moaned his name.

Later, when it it was done, he awoke to find himself alone in her bed. The scent of her lingered everywhere, but it did nothing to ease the sense that something was deeply wrong. That she should be there, beside him.

He didn't manage to shake the feeling off as he stumbled to the gravity chamber.