Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Hot Dish Hentai ❯ Hot Dish Hentai ( One-Shot )

"Hot Dish Hentai"

Fragment from the story All That I Am

By Derr

Dedicated to *Angelus and mi m'o of the Hentai Institute

Standard Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the franchise of Dragonball Z, but consider this a work of fan fiction, for the pleasure of myself and other fans. I do not plan or expect to make a profit from this work. Suing me would be pointless.

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He was anger, and pride, ...and contradiction -

Vegeta absently fingered his shirt as he stepped into the kitchen. The pink button-down was still a fashion travesty, but the prince had found himself growing attached to it lately, much as he was becoming attached to the one who gave it to him - not that he would allow himself to admit to either openly. Still, his wardrobe had become a compromise; underneath "BADMAN" lay the impossibly elastic fibrous underpadding of his Saiyan armor. Despite the relative comfort of the looser human clothing, he still felt undressed, somehow, without the enclosing snugness of his accustomed uniform. The alien fabric extended down his legs as well, though any evidence of such was covered by the faded denim worn over them. Footwear had been the one item Bulma had been adamant about, insisting that Vegeta's regular white boots simply wouldn't do. Upon protesting that the sneakers she proffered as replacements were just as white, Vegeta was simply informed that his gold-tipped boots made him look like a royal Smurf, and that was that. At the time, he chose not to debase himself by asking what a Smurf was, though he intuited that the reference was derogatory. Eschewing his usual stubbornness and outrage over such an implied slander, he opted for the sneakers. He still thought they felt odd, but at least they had stopped making that squeaking noise when he walked...

The blue-haired originator of the thinly veiled insult to his footwear turned from where she had been facing the sink and grinned at him. "There you are! It's almost ready. Have a seat, and I'll bring it over."

Vegeta grunted in acquiescence, and turned to pull a chair from under the wooden table. He refrained from turning it around and straddling the back, as had become his custom; he was too hungry at this point to indulge in their usual game, which involved her harping in protest at his blatant disregard for ningen etiquette, and his snarling explication of just what he thought of ningen etiquette. Looking down, he noticed that the table had already been set. Two plates, two forks, a rather large pitcher of water and two glasses populated its surface, along with a folded cloth placed at the center, no doubt to serve as a makeshift trivet. Whatever it is, at least it'll be uncomplicated, he thought, looking at the simple setting. Bulma hadn't told him what she intended to make for his post-training "snack" today, rebuffing his demands for more information with the cryptic statement, "I think you'll like it."

He was about to find out, however, as Bulma drew a white container from the oven. It was round and deep, with a lip that flared slightly from ridged sides. Holding the steaming object gingerly with potholdered hands, she set it gently on the table, over the folded cloth. "There," she said with satisfaction, though her face suddenly lost its smile. "Oh, wait, I forgot the serving spoon." She turned around and began to rummage through cupboard drawers, as Vegeta decided to satisfy his curiosity by craning his neck to peer into the dish.

What Vegeta saw didn't impress him. About an inch below the lip of the dish was a gold-brown layer of... something. The surface was studded with small curls and protrusions, with places on the very edge showing signs of having only just stopped bubbling. Except for the occasional greenish sphere embedded just below the surface, it looked like someone had somehow captured the surface of a choppy sea, and set its appearance by deep-frying it. The scent was odd, a mixture of the intriguing and the distasteful, though he was unable to place any of the components. As Bulma turned back from the cupboards, large metal spoon in hand, Vegeta quickly looked away from the immobile spectacle, not wanting to give the impression that he had been in the least bit interested in the thing that the human had cooked for him. He certainly didn't think he was now, as the Saiyan equivalent of bile began to roil in his digestive tract.

It was too late, though. Bulma had seen him peering at her creation. "So, what do you think?" she asked as she sat down. "Looks good, doesn't it? Here," she said, gesturing to hand the spoon to him, "dig in. Take as much as you want."

Vegeta looked askance at the dish before flicking his eyes up to her. "What the fuck is it?" he growled, a hint of disgust latent in his tone. "It looks like vomit."

The spoon in Bulma's hand drooped as her wrist went limp. She gently set her arm on the table, the spoon halfway between them. "Is that all you have to say?"

Vegeta frowned, thought momentarily, then spoke again. "Fine. It looks like baked vomit. What is it, woman?"

Bulma sighed. "It's not vomit, Vegeta. Where I grew up, it's called tuna-noodle hot dish, but most people around here call a hot dish a casserole."

Vegeta sat back in his chair, arms folded, still glaring at the oven-browned conglomeration. "Where I grew up, we would probably call it a great many things, most of which would have been quite inappropriate to utter publicly at the royal court." He looked up at Bulma when he heard her sigh again.

"Baka, I made this myself, with my own hands, for you." She looked into his eyes, unflinching, a hint of disappointment tingeing her expression... along with a hint of challenge. The outline of the little vein on Vegeta's forehead appeared momentarily, then shrunk back into the surrounding flesh.

The prince felt his royal indignation flare up briefly at what she had just called him in the Saiyan tongue. It was forced back down quickly, however, by a sense of curiosity, and even a little intrigue. Where did she pick that word up? She had also just said that she made the dish for him herself, and he suddenly felt obligation, on top of dread. If a host had prepared food themselves for a guest, the guest was honor-bound to show respect by eating some, regardless of how it might taste. Saiyan high etiquette demanded no less. Dammit! Does the blue-hair know that, too? It's like she knows which strings to pull, which buttons to press...

He closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose. Like so many other times in his life, he resigned himself to an unpleasant fate. He opened his eyes again to look at her as he spoke. "Very well. I will try some, if only because I've become too hungry to be discriminating." His acid wit suggested he say that her cooking could certainly be no worse than her fashion sense, when he remembered that he was wearing the shirt she gave him. He decided to hold his tongue, and preferably, numb it in advance of the questionable snack in front of him.

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Hn," she snorted with a wisp of a smile. She picked up the spoon again and sunk it into the dish, scooping out a mound of the stuff, and deposited it on Vegeta's plate. More accustomed to her own culinary handiwork, she spooned a larger portion onto her own plate. She set the spoon in the casserole dish, and picked up her fork. "Well? You first," she goaded.

Vegeta sighed again, though something in him had become intrigued upon hearing the sound of the concoction being scooped out. It was a wet, crackly noise, eerily similar to a sound from his past as a purger: his gloved hand clawing through the still-warm viscera of one of his many kills. Picking up a forkful and inspecting it, he noticed the stuff even looked like one of his kills. Small hunks of pinkish flesh hung in the tines, coated with a thick gold-white liquid. Also skewered on the fork were pale white, bent tubes that looked suspiciously like blood vessels. Or very small bits of intestine. What the hell did the onna cook? Carrion? He sniffed it tentatively, noting that it didn't smell like carrion, though that may have had to do with the fact that it was obviously cooked. He lifted the fork to his mouth, then paused. Moving the fork away again, he looked at Bulma quizzically. "What is this made from?"

His companion shrugged, then listed the ingredients nonchalantly. "Not much. Canned tuna, macaroni, cheese, peas, and cream of mushroom soup. So are you -"

"There's soup in this? Your idea of cooking involves baked soup? What the hell do you -"

She sighed as she interrupted him. "It's canned soup. Concentrated. It's more like a glue here than a real soup -"

"GLUE? I'm about to eat GLUE?" he sputtered. "Onna, I -"

"That's not what I meant," she said hurriedly, her voice beginning to betray impatience. "I meant that the soup is a binding ingredient, to hold everything else together. It makes the whole thing mellow, too. Now, are you going to eat any, like you said you would?" Her body began to lean over the table expectantly.

"Onna, I've eaten many strange things in my life, but this might be -"

"IF YOU'RE GOING TO EAT ANY, DAMMIT, EAT IT NOW BEFORE IT GETS COLD!" she shouted. She held herself for a moment, then continued, her voice forcibly calmed. "I know it's not in your nature, but for one minute, can you put your stubbornness and suspicion aside, and just trust me enough to try it? It's only food, for God's sake..." She sat back in her chair, looking deflated somehow, as though she were imminently expecting a personal failure of colossal magnitude. She frowned, folding her arms in an unconscious imitation of the prince's habitual stance.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. For once, she had made a good point during one of her tirades. It was just food. He'd experienced far worse over the years than an unpalatable lunch. He lifted the fork to his mouth once again, this time not stopping until the food was safely inside. He began to chew, and taste. And remember...

The stuff was mellow, a soft but not-quite-bland flavor registering on his senses. The texture was yielding, but not mushy, having enough cohesion to be chewable. He heard once again the sticky crackle of a noodle, and felt the satisfying burst of a soft pea between his back teeth. It reminded him in many ways of the special meals he had eaten with his father. The king had a taste for a dish made with the eggs and meat of an exotic beast native to Vejitasei, and every once in a while, when one of the rare creatures had been caught and presented to the royal family, he and Vegeta would eat on the roof of the palace. The dying rays of the sun would color the wide, arid landscape while the king cooked the meal there himself, the only time something passed their lips that had not been prepared for them by unseen servants. Cooked to a ruby-red perfection, it was eaten while cool evening zephyrs breezed around them. And there, away from the endless ministers, scribes, and toadies of the royal court - and even guards, as far as Vegeta remembered - they talked, not as king and prince, but as father and son. The king had seemed so much more at ease in those moments, moments that became fewer and farther-between as Vegeta grew older and the king grew gradually more distant and consumed by weighty burdens, too deep for the precocious young prince to shoulder, or even know.

He recalled the last such meal, involving a larger than usual amount of the food, and ending with him dozing in his father's lap, vaguely aware of the stars coming out as the king softly sang a lullaby. That the lullaby was of Tsufuru origin would have been cause for scandal, a bit of forbidden culture that not even the king could have indulged in mixed company. Between just the two of them, however, it was a private gesture of comfort and safety. It was to be the last such gesture they would share. The next day, Vegeta left the planet with Frieza, ostensibly as a student, in reality a political prisoner. The last, waning scraps of love and affection from the king would be replaced by the enslavement and contempt of his new guardian. Vegeta would never see his father again.

Delicious... Vegeta swallowed the food, suddenly realizing that he had closed his eyes. Fuck me... One bite brings back all that? Should I risk eating more? He opened his eyes, trying to compose himself and hoping that he hadn't betrayed any unseemly sentimentality to the human in front of him.

Shit, too late... He found her looking at him, the barest ghost of a smile on her lips. It was a real smile, though, and not a derisive smirk.

"We call things like this comfort food..." She offered her words as much as a question as a statement.

"Hn..." Vegeta murmured, no trace of the usual compulsory scorn. Comfort food. It's a fitting title. He paused for a moment, looking wistfully off to one side of her. "I may have been somewhat hasty with my opinion before," he said quietly, "but -" He caught himself before he said more, cursing inwardly. Dammit, I absolutely will not extol the virtues of her cooking like some sycophantic lackey! He thought quickly of something else to say to complete his sentence, something more in keeping with his carefully cultivated idiom. "but, it does provide nourishment." He winced inwardly at himself. That was pathetic, you bakayaro...

He looked back at her, noting that her smile had widened, and had somehow taken on a you-can't-fool-me aspect. "I knew you'd like it," she said simply.

The vein on his forehead throbbed again. Damn onna sees right through me...

They ate the rest of their meal quietly, punctuated only by Bulma's queries as to whether Vegeta wanted another helping, and Vegeta's answering grunts of assent. Having anticipated his Saiyan appetite, as well as the likelihood that he would like what she had cooked, she produced a second casserole full of the stuff from the warm oven. Vegeta was once again sure that he had slipped, and inadvertently allowed her to see both the surprise and pleasure he felt when she produced the additional container. He noted that his careful control slipped often when he was in her presence. But then again, why not? Like everyone else from the planet he considered to be a pathetic mudball, he had to stifle the frequent urge to throttle her. But ever since he had returned from deep space a year and a half before, he had developed an equally frequent urge to screw her silly. No one else had ever had the audacity to resist, question, and provoke him as she had, and he found it terribly arousing. In addition to what began as mutual lust, they had slowly built up a level of ease and comfort between them that Vegeta had never before experienced. He would never admit it, but he found their repartee to be both stimulating and endearing, and to his secret delight, he believed she felt the same way.

Is this real love? he asked himself. Is this what Kakarott and his mate have? He immediately chastised himself. Kakarott's mate was a shrill bitch of a harpy, their pairing surely a match made in hell. It's no wonder he's away so often. She must be one hell of a lay for him to keep coming back home to her, he thought with derisive amusement. At least his own would-be mate was keeping her shrieking to a minimum. He noted suddenly that in the last few months she had seemed to calm down quite a bit. He thought absently for a moment, then realized to his own surprise when the transition took place. Weeks ago, they had spent the evening watching a movie she claimed he would probably like. And he had liked it, though she had to explain many of the cultural references to him. It was a clever interlocking of tales concerning two assassins, their employer's wife, and a sport fighter. The acerbic, witty dialogue and almost comical violence appealed to him, but what stuck in his mind was an exchange between the wife and one of the assassins, who had been asked to accompany her on a night out. Eating at an unusual restaurant, they had reached a lull in their conversation. Moments passed before the employer's wife spoke up.

"Don't you hate that?"

"Hate what?"

"Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?"

"I don't now. That's a good question."

"That's when you know you've found somebody really special... when you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share a silence."

"That's the most Saiyan thing I've heard come out of a human mouth yet," he had murmured, laying on a couch with his head in her lap.

"Hmm," Bulma had voiced thoughtfully after a moment, her hands gently trailing through his upswept hair. That was it, the point from which her ceaseless babble and irrational tirades had become curtailed.

She's very observant, he thought, inwardly pleased that he had intuited this. It explained her knowing glances, and the way she so often seemed to know what he was thinking, and just what to say to him. His eyes softened for a moment as it sunk in just how much her observations flattered and humbled him. No one, aside from his father, seemed to treat him as a person as much as Bulma.

Would you be my mate, if I asked you? he questioned mentally. Would you stand with me, bear my children, make me whole? He vowed to ask her, soon. What hidden pleasures and new experiences would be revealed to him if they stayed together? After all, this was the woman who introduced him to the wonder of chocolate, and a little later, to the erotic possibilities of said chocolate...

Speaking of which... he finally noticed that for the last little while, she had been looking at him with an interest that asked more than so-how-do-you-like-the-food. He knew the look well. "So, what's for dessert?" he asked, a hint of huskiness in his voice.

She wisped another smile at him, this time with a distinctly mischievous quality to it. "Cookies and cream," she answered seductively.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. He thought he caught the cream part, but not the cookies. No matter. The ningen's language was such that anything took on sexual undertones if said the right way. He definitely knew where this was going. He was suddenly thankful he was wearing loose jeans over his mesh fabric. It just wouldn't do for the onna's mother to traipse in and notice his state of... mind. He leered at her. So help me, I'll take you right now, over this table...

She saw through him yet again. "No dessert until you finish your plate," she said with her own leer.

He began to eat more quickly.

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