Vegeta noted with some concern that his head swam as he stood. The ground shifted beneath his feet. He floated up a few inches and that made things significantly worse. Everything swirled around, but was somehow stationary. He turned away from the woman and took an experimental step on the treacherous ground. His sloppy coordination made it a struggle. Had the woman poisoned him?
Fuck. The wine. The alcohol. The woman bamboozled him so thoroughly with her impertinent questioning that he had no idea how much he'd had to drink. He blinked to clear his bleary vision. Even his sense of smell was blunted. He mentally paged back through the meal. Dear gods, he drank the whole bottle except the piddling amount she drank in order to trick him. Why would she do this to him? Was she so concerned with proving his inability to teach her to fly that she would hamper him this way?
Vegeta never tolerated alcohol well. After a few unfortunate learning experiences, he never drank again. Especially since his obvious drinking companions, Raditz and Nappa, were double his weight, at least. Vegeta's flamethrower metabolism poured the alcohol into his bloodstream, but his liver was a quarter the size of a human's. Saiyans' sense of smell meant they rarely concerned themselves with poisons. The same blast furnace that drove his power and his appetite tended to consume most of the things requiring filtration by human livers. Saiyan livers were one step from being vestigial. As a result, the alcohol lingered, stoked by that metabolic fire. Vegeta was not a large man from a blood volume perspective, so he imagined his blood alcohol content at the moment was absurdly high.
Vegeta willed himself not to stagger, thanking any gods who would listen that he hadn't toppled onto the woman when he helped her to her feet. The wine was tricky alcohol: he hardly tasted it with all the other nonsense wrapped around it. It also settled like silt until he moved and stirred it up. Vegeta took a deep breath to steady himself. He needed to get rid of the woman, he couldn't allow her to see him like this.
"Well, teach away, professor. I think it might be challenging to get a human in the air," the woman said, chuckling in premature triumph.
Vegeta whirled around to glare at her. Fucking ethanol. The world reeled and his mass unmoored from his proprioception. There was a terrifying nanosecond when he thought he would have to either brace himself on the woman or fall, but at the last moment, he managed to muster and coordinate enough chi to push himself into a swaying, but upright, position.
The woman's face split open in a disbelieving smile. She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled out, "Oh shit! Are you drunk?"
Vegeta tried to think of some snappy retort, as she enjoyed such banter, but without permission, his mouth said, "Fuck. Yes. Very."
"Oh, Vegeta, I'm sorry. You were chugging your wine, but with the way you eat, I assumed you had good tolerance," she said, but still snickered at his expense.
"You do not seem at all apologetic. And I had hardly anything to eat!" he protested, his eyes widening in horror first at this admission, and second at the realization that he was far too drunk to hunt effectively. He was fucking starving. Tears of angry hunger threatened. Anything but tears. Vegeta would have to self-destruct if he cried about food in front of the woman. About anything, but especially not food. It shamed Vegeta enough that she had to keep him sheltered and clothed and fed at the basic poverty level rations she supplied.
"You just ate several entire blocks of cheese and a sleeve of crackers," she said, "Not to mention the wine itself should be filling."
"That was nine or ten thousand calories. Twelve tops," Vegeta grumbled, unable to help himself. He forgot that he was an honest drunk. He needed to be an asleep drunk.
"That's more than I eat over several days, Vegeta!"
"But…but…" Vegeta's control was slipping. His desire to mope about how hungry he was blossomed in him. The thoughts she'd provoked with all her absurd talk of love and boyfriends and loss frothed up in his mind. Vegeta's breaths came in panicked drags. His throat started to close up.
"Hey, come here, sit back down. Sit down, Vegeta, you're falling apart. I take it drinking isn't much a part of Saiyan culture. Or space-nomadism," she said and put her hand under his elbow, touching her skin to the bare flesh on his arm.
Vegeta hadn't gotten laid in so long—years—that it was physically painful, so the barest contact, the light touch of her hand on him felt like another drug on top of the alcohol. Her scent, which was so close now, and still, somehow, despite his drunkenness, aroused, was driving him absolutely mad. He shoved her hand off his arm before he did something stupid.
"I'm fine!" he snapped, demonstrating that he was not at all fine. "I…Saiyans…" Fuck, now he was slurring. More panic welled in him…Memories…The last time he'd been drunk like this. He couldn't think of anything safe to say, his mind was such a confusing jumble. What came out of his mouth was, "I'm so fucking hungry. But too drunk to hunt."
The woman's eyes widened. She choked out, "Hunt? What do you hunt?"
"Mostly the large reptilian things, but deer when I'm less hungry. Fish on occasion just for variety. Is that hunting? Do you hunt fish?" Vegeta said and thought too hard before saying, "Fished. I fished for fish. Very redundant. But…my…" Vegeta tried moving with precision and managed to keep his feet, but it was a near thing.
"Vegeta…have you…have you been hungry, like, since you came to live with me?" the woman asked, her eyebrows drawing together.
Vegeta's shame roared up over the drunken sloppiness. Why had he mentioned the hunger and the hunting? Why couldn't drunk Vegeta shut the fuck up? He would now. Because he would cry if she took pity on him. He said nothing, but swayed his way over to the edge of his balcony. He could probably catch some of the bottom feeder fish which tended to be slower.
She seized his arm again. "Stop doing this. I hate it when you just ignore me because you have some weird Vegeta-bullshit going on in your brain. How would I know how much a Saiyan eats? I've seen Goku eat, of course, but you're a lot smaller, so I didn't know you were like him!"
Vegeta gasped in horror. He bit out, "I am not like Kakarot! That…that…that…traitorous clown! Fratricidal motherfucker!"
"Shh…gods, do Saiyans get the munchies with alcohol? I can get you more food. Why the hell didn't you say something, you stubborn ass?"
"I can…" Vegeta's throat tightened again. He couldn't very well say that he could take care of himself, when that was obviously not the case—he hadn't even been able to dress himself. What was wrong with him? Why now? Why was he weepy when this was the closest he'd come to any kind of camaraderie with the woman? He swallowed and said, "I…fuck…the…the shame of it!"
He clutched his head in his hands to still the world and bit down hard on his tongue to stop the potential overflow of repulsive feelings that surged in him. He hated Earth. Hated it. Hated everything that had happened that led him here. Except the woman. He couldn't stand the thought of not having the woman in his life. It was all so confusing. This was why Vegeta hated emotions—they simply didn't adhere to any logic or pattern.
"Vegeta, gods! You're bleeding!" the woman cried, but Vegeta was busy clinging to the last of his will not to cry about everything. He took long, heaving breaths to try to stuff all the wretched emotions back down.
The woman pressed something, a cloth, to his chin. "What are you doing?" he slurred. His hands came down to take hers away from his face. A terrible mistake, taking both her hands that way; it was too intimate. Her turquoise eyes were right there, staring into the black tarpit of his soul. He flinched away, dropped her hands, and by the grace of some merciful god, caught himself on the balustrade.
Penned in by her now, she reached up again and dabbed at his chin, holding his shoulder in her other hand. "Stop being an idiot. Have you never been drunk before?"
His breathing hitched. He could answer questions. He could speak. He didn't need to have a crisis. "I have. I hate it. I…the wine didn't seem strong enough to do this."
"Here, open your mouth, did you bite your tongue? Alcohol doesn't poison Saiyans, does it? You want to sit down?"
"No!" he snapped. He wanted her to stop doing what she was doing.
She looked confused, but stopped fussing over him. The steely look she got whenever they argued morphed her face. That sexy ferocity. "Godsdamnit, Vegeta, you are seriously trying my patience tonight! Sit your fucking ass down and let me have a look at your mouth!"
"What?! No! How am I trying your patience? I'm not the one asking all manner of…of…of private questions!" Vegeta lurched up off the railing into her face. Gods she smelled good. He wanted to taste her everywhere. "Why do you even care? Why do you bother with someone…someone…someone like me?" Vegeta choked out. Fuck. Tears filled his eyes. Fucking alcohol.
"Sit. The. Fuck. Down," she hissed.
Vegeta toppled onto his ass, completely unprepared, when the woman shoved him down. She dropped to her knees in front of him, seized his jaw, and squeezed painfully on the muscles until he opened his mouth. She poked a finger in his mouth and Vegeta's eyes bugged out. What was the crazed woman doing?
"You really hurt your tongue! Why did you bite your tongue?" She took her finger out of his mouth, thankfully, before he started sucking on it in a fit of passion, but left her hand on his face.
"To regain myself," he whispered, staring into her eyes.
"What does that mean? Do you try to be difficult or does it just come naturally to you?" she said with a little half-smile that made him ache to lean forward and kiss it off her face. She released her hold on his jaw.
Some of Vegeta's tension and fear evaporated as he laughed. He said, "Naturally, I believe."
"Want to put off flying lessons until you're not drunk?"
"It hardly seems sporting to incapacitate me just to prove a point," he grumbled.
"How did I incapacitate you? You're the one who guzzled a beverage meant for sipping!" she snarled.
Gods, her fierceness was making him hard. Everything about the damned woman made him hard. Drunk Vegeta wondered if now that they had shared a meal privately, if that somehow counted for the weird food-whoring system. A thought occurred: did the reverse work? Could he gain food through sexual favors? Would she accept them from him in exchange for more sustenance? Was the Prince of All Saiyans above whoring himself for food on a planet that seemed to regard it as the norm?
No, one hungry night wasn't worth that indignity, even if he would love every second of pleasuring her. He hated Earth customs. He wouldn't lower himself that way. Not to mention the added shame if she rejected his sexual offerings: then he would be both starving and humiliated.
He said, "How was I to know that it was for sipping? And I was sipping!"
Her face softened and she said, "I'm going to go get you some more food. Can you stay put? I'm afraid if you try to fly, you'll wipe out."
"Wipe out?" he asked.
"You know, crash. Fall. Hurt yourself."
"Oh," he said, his voice small, his earlier sense of hope shattered, and all the sickening emotions returned. "You don't need to get me more food. I'll be fine."
"Why do you do this? I'm happy to get you more food. Where does this…this…pointless resentment come from? I'm trying to fucking help you, you stubborn fucking asshole. I have been trying to help you for three godsdamned years and it is just…just…infuriating at times!" She shoved his shoulder hard.
Vegeta's mind and reflexes were slow, slogging through all the ethanol. The woman's pitiful blow caught him off guard and the drink made the world tilt ominously. He yelped, "Fuck!" and tipped backward. The woman had put all her insignificant force into the shove. Vegeta had never given way even a nanometer from her ridiculous attempts at aggression, so the fact that he was going down was clearly unanticipated by the woman, who toppled after him. On top of him. Sprawled beautifully on his chest, her breasts almost spilling out of the flimsy dress onto him.
Vegeta's eyes widened and hers did too. They stared into one another. An even hotter blaze of desire roared in Vegeta's body. He wanted to kiss her, to make a sad, drunken attempt to seduce her. He would reveal all his shameful secrets if she would just have sex with him. He needed it. He needed her. He breathed heavily, but the moment passed and she pushed herself up and off him, tucking her hair back behind her ears. She avoided his eyes.
The woman left without another word. Vegeta let out a heaving breath. Once her chi was suitably distant, a strangled noise tore out of Vegeta. His hand flew over his mouth and tears filled his eyes. They escaped down his temples as he remained on his back, staring up at the sky as heavy thunderheads rolled in, blotting out the stars. The ground spun beneath him and he felt nauseous. He wished he hadn't fucked things up with the woman. He longed to be what she wanted, to give her something in return, for once.
His whole body shook as he let himself go completely. He hadn't allowed himself this type of shameful catharsis since coming to Earth. It felt volcanic as all his nasty, useless feelings erupted out in the form of saline and pathetic noises. He was grateful when the first smattering of raindrops hit him, hiding his tears, if not the snotty, pitiful noises.
The woman had asked if he was homesick, and Vegeta wasn't. He couldn't be, with no home left, but he was…ease-sick. Even in his servitude to that vile asshole, Frieza, Vegeta had long stretches of feeling competent and relatively comfortable in his own skin. He and Raditz and Nappa had fought side by side so long that they were a family, of a kind, comrades, at least, who could just exist without expending any mental energy. The thought of his fallen Saiyan comrades—all the memories that came along with that grief—made a fresh round of sobs burst out of him.
Everything on Earth was so hard and humiliating and his constant confusion wore him down. He hated being dependent for every tiny thing. The androids' imminent arrival at least gave him some focus, but otherwise his life was purposeless. He supposed it always had been, but it felt worse here.
His drunkenness put him completely at the mercy of his wretched, weak emotions, and the fathomless ache for physical contact wracked his body, expelling more tears. Not just sex—though dear gods, what he wouldn't give for sex—he missed the press of a body next to his afterwards, or even sometimes without coupling. He longed for hands on his skin and the tactile pleasure of his lover's flesh under his own palms. He missed the casual touch that most people expected day to day. Vegeta was so alien, literally, to everyone here, that the only person who ever touched him at all was the woman. And those were glancing, brief, ephemeral moments of contact. He would likely weep with joy if she ever forced a hug on him, because his stupid pride would never allow him to ask for one or even to receive one without complaint. The weakness such neediness revealed horrified him. He had a fucking erection just from her falling on top of him. He probably could have come if she'd ground her hips on him a few times. His stomach hurt he was so thoroughly pent up.
"Aw, are you a sad drunk? I thought you might be a sad drunk," the woman's voice said, "but I also think you maybe needed a good cry. Come on, let's get you inside, you poor thing." The woman knelt beside him.
Vegeta's heart ceased beating. Or he wished it would. He willed himself to die right there, anything but face the woman now that she'd caught him like this. His eyes were scrunched closed in agonizing embarrassment. Thunder boomed close enough that he felt it more than heard it. If only the lightning had struck him and ended his pitiful existence.
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