Letting Go, by LadyVegeets

Written for the 2017 October Vegebul Smutfest hosted by ThePrinceAndTheHeiress

"In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself." - Deepak Chopra

1 - Soft Blushes

Vegeta loathed the lilac ceiling tiles in what Bulma had come to dub 'the recovery room'. An appropriate name, given it was where Vegeta found himself when he overdid it during training. The first time he woke up here had been perplexing to say the least. In a fit of rage to achieve the Super Saiyan form, he had destroyed the gravity machine and himself. Waking up with an oxygen mask on was familiar, but where he expected to be suspended in a healing tank, instead he was laying in a bed with his blue-haired host at the bedside table next to him, asleep. That had been… odd. Vegeta left as soon as possible to resume training, much to Bulma's ire. He didn't know why she cared so much, or why her concern irked him like a fly buzzing around his head.

He continued to push himself to his limits. Further injury was inevitable, and on this backwater planet without a healing chamber that meant suffering Bulma's first-aid. She tended to him while he did his best to ignore her, counting the tiles overhead and pretending that her presence didn't invoke something within him.

But she did, and it was troubling. Vegeta wasn't used to emotions that couldn't be categorized as anger, disappointment, indifference, or amusement at the expense of others. Bulma fit none of those, making him feel… differently. Vegeta didn't like different. He didn't trust it. So he tried to ignore her, glowering with suspicion as she chatted to him in the recovery room, her soft fingers stroking his arms more than he thought was necessary while applying his bandages. He ground his teeth whenever she gave him long looks with her twinkling baby-blues that had his stomach knot and his blood pressure spike.

What feeling was this?

Nausea?

Whatever it was, it was unnerving. Especially as he couldn't figure out her motivations. Those who had helped him in the past had done so because of one reason: fear. Fear of him, or fear of Frieza. But she wasn't afraid. It was unsettling, especially because he couldn't dismiss her as being too dense to comprehend the monster she housed. She knew precisely who and what he was. She was smart. The longer he stayed in her house, the more he came to grudgingly realize that fact, and the more unsettled he felt. She fixed the gravity machine whenever it malfunctioned, and she invented the battle drones after he had complained of needing a bigger challenge. Her cleverness also extended beyond machines. She had wit enough to engage him in repartees, so much so that he found himself watching what he said about her. And she had a tempter to match his. But more than anything, he hadn't failed to notice that Kakarot's little friends all deferred to her despite her pathetically low ki.

She was important, and dangerous. Her girlish smiles and fluttering eyelashes hid fearsome intelligence and power. In retrospect, it made sense. Any half-decent operation needed at least one person with brains, and Kakarot and his ragtag team of delinquents certainly didn't fit that bill. But she did. Bulma was the Frieza of Earth's little empire.

He couldn't let his guard down around her.

Which is why the next time Vegeta hurt himself and Bulma tried sticking him with a needle, he grabbed her hand and slammed it — and her — against the nearest wall. He barely needed to flex his fingers to get her to drop the weapon, the needle falling harmlessly to the floor.

"If you try that again, woman, I will end you," he growled in warning, pressing the full length of his body against hers to show he meant his threat.

Her eyes had flown impossibly wide, her breathing accelerated. Fuck, it felt good to dominate her, to crush her soft tiny frame under his. Too long he had played the meek house guest, but no more. It was time to remind her that he was not one of Kakarot's little buddies that she could boss around.

"Try what?" She asked, her voice breathless in what he hoped was fear. "Vegeta, it was just a local anesthetic."

"Says you," he countered, refusing to admit he didn't even know what an 'anesthetic' was. From her tone it was something benign, but like hell he was going to take her word for it or let her jab him with a foreign substance.

"Yes, says me," she replied wryly. "All those with a medical degree, raise your hand."

Both their eyes looked up to where Vegeta had her hand pinned high against the wall. Bulma smirked. Vegeta grimaced, and looked back at her.

"Cute," he snarked, a little miffed that she was cracking jokes when she should be begging for her life. "But your charms won't spare you if you try and drug me again."

She sighed. "Vegeta, if I wanted to drug you, I would have done it to your food."

…Shit. She had a point.

Not that he was going to admit that.

"I can smell food that's been tampered with," he bluffed. It wasn't entirely a lie, he did have a good sense of smell but it wouldn't save him if she spiked his meals. Earth's food was still foreign to him. Half the things he ate he couldn't place the flavors of, it would be so easy for her to poison him. Was he really going to have to start mistrusting his food? She wouldn't dare, would she?

"Oh, Son has a good sense of smell too," she replied, her voice strangely quieter than before. "Is that a Saiyan thing?"

Ah good, she bought it. "It is," he confirmed. Their faces were so close that their brows nearly touched. "Saiyans are superior to you pathetic humans in all regards."

Her throat bobbed. "…How much can you smell?" she asked nervously.

He loomed over her, inhaling deeply against her temple for show. "Everything. I can smell the morning dew in your hair. From yesterday."

Her breath hitched, and she lowered her gaze. She touched his chest with her free hand, in a feeble attempt to push him away.

"…I think you should let go of me now," she whispered.

His eyes narrowed, suspicious not only of her request, but the strangely meek way she asked it.

"Why?"

She fidgeted and he tightened his hold on her wrist, suspecting some duplicity.

"Ah," she whimpered, her eyes fluttering up to meet his. They were dark, her pupils two black moons as endless as space, burning with something he had never seen before but wanted to lose himself to. The softest of blushes stained her cheeks. And there, so faint he almost hadn't noticed, something sweet, feminine, and intoxicating perfumed her skin.

Holy shit.

He let her go in shock as though her skin burned, his own face turning red with realization. She lowered her gaze, tightened her lab coat about her and left. Vegeta stood alone in the recovery room, still bleeding, hurt, and now gutted with the knowledge that Bulma had been aroused in his arms.

~xox~