Chapter Text

There's three weeks before Christmas and thirty months before the androids are due to arrive when Bulma decides she can't just sit around moping about being single and agonising over the potential apocalypse.

Chi Chi is over and she's brought Gohan with her, currently preoccupied with the placement of the star atop the ridiculous 24ft Christmas tree that sits pride and place in the living room. It's normally Yamcha's job, but he's spending Christmas with Roshi and Krillin this year, a fact that still stings far more than it should, so Gohan has bravely stepped up to complete the task, hovering uncertainly as his mother and Bulma give him conflicting advice as to the proper way to set the ornament.

It's Gohan's presence that does it, she's sure.

Vegeta only emerges from his mechanical cave when someone with a power level substantially higher than virtually zero enters the compound. Everyone else he ignores as though they were merely vermin, though to a royal with the ability to obliterate entire planets with the tip of his finger, she supposes they are. He bursts through the door just as Gohan is shimmying the star further to the left on Chi Chi's command, and they all freeze. Bulma quite likes having Vegeta around, he's brutish and rude, but she also finds him to be fairly handsome in his own broody way, and she admires his dedication to any given task he sets his mind to. More than that, he's softened substantially since moving into the Capsule Corp. compound, more-so since Yamcha's abrupt exit from Bulma's life, and she's actually gotten some semblance of conversation out of him on occasion.

He's rough around the edges, undeniably so, but she suspects that deep down he's gentler than he'd ever let on, and most of his unyielding rage is born from unfathomable sadness. She's caught him, now and then, staring at the blank expanse of space, looking lost and oh-so-lonely, his kind extinct save for two and a half, and the ache that seizes her heart in those moments feels powerful enough to kill her should she choose not to look away.

But, understandably, Chi Chi can't trust him – he is the monster responsible for the kidnap and year long wilderness training session of her four year old son; the man who he once tried to murder along with the kid's father. Were it not for the threat of his presence, Chi Chi wouldn't have been left to face twelve long, lonely months dealing with both the loss of her husband and her toddler. Gohan just seems uncertain of the motives of everyone who isn't his father or Piccolo.

Bulma can't honestly blame the kid.

“Where's Kakarot?” Vegeta asks with his usual lack of tact. He's not looking at anyone in particular, and it's hard to tell who he's actually talking to.

Gohan sinks to the floor, standing between his mom and his prince. He's a brave boy, far braver than he should be at eight years old. Sometimes Bulma feels guilty for having to rely on him so heavily. “He's training with Mr.Piccolo...”

Vegeta seems to consider this for a brief moment before stalking towards the boy like a predator closing in on his prey. “Come on boy, you're training with me.”

Vegeta has Gohan by the the collar of his shirt and is dragging him out of the the door, Chi Chi shrieking obscenities and demands that Vegeta unhand her son immediately to little avail. Vegeta is ignoring her, as he ignores most people, and poor Gohan is shooting the two women pleading looks, probably resolving to never return to Capsule Corp. as long as he lives.

“Let go of him,” Bulma says firmly, and to everyones surprise – barring her own – Vegeta complies, dropping Gohan with a quiet 'ooof'. He glares at her, cocking his head to the side in silent demand for an explanation, and Bulma sighs. He almost looks cute, like an inquisitive puppy, but Bulma squashes that thought before it can gain momentum and begin to fester. “It's Christmas. Leave him alone. He can train with you some other time.”

Vegeta sneers at her and mutters something under his breath in a language she doesn't understand, but he doesn't push the issue, instead sauntering past her to help himself to a fistful of the gingerbread cookies that she and Chi Chi had made earlier in the afternoon. He shoves them into his mouth and barely chews before he swallows, casting Gohan one last look before retreating from the room and presumably heading back to the Gravity Chamber.

“How did you do that?” Chi Chi asks, eyes wide in astonishment, jaw slack.

Bulma just shrugs, because she doesn't honestly understand it herself, she just knows that when it comes to her Vegeta is unusually biddable, and almost always acquiesces eventually, even if it does come with a lot of squabbling and temper tantrums.

“Okay,” Bulma says, reaching into a cardboard box and pulling out a string of tinsel. “Gohan, I think we need to move the star more to the right.”

------

“What is this 'Christmas'? Some sort of ritual?”

Vegeta slams down his fist in the centre of Bulma's desk, displacing the schematics to the indoor Gravity Chamber that she's been slaving away on all day. It's been about a week since Chi Chi and Gohan came over, and the Capsule Corp. compound is a mess of tinsel, tacky ornaments and paper chains. She's seen Vegeta glance at them with suspicion, seen his eyes narrow at Panchy's awful carolling. She's not sure if he hates it, or he's just confused. It's hard to tell with Vegeta.

She looks up from the blueprints and raises a brow. He's just in a navy wife-beater and black spandex shorts, and the scientist in her wants to probe him about Saiyan body temperatures because she's wearing a thick woollen jumper and a thermal leggings and she's still freezing cold.

“You don't have Christmas?” Bulma asks, and she regrets the question instantly because of course an alien race of hyper-aggressive warriors wouldn't share a human commercial holiday rooted in religion and capitalism.

Vegeta actually growls like an animal, and Bulma rolls her eyes. He looks frustrated by the lack of respect, but there's also a hint of what appears to be admiration in there, and Bulma's stomach somersaults at the thought. “It's a festival. It's a... well...” she struggles to find the words to explain it in a way that Vegeta will understand. “There's lots of reasons humans celebrate it. It's like a big gathering of your closest companions every december. We give gifts to our loved ones and have a kind of feast to celebrate. We basically gorge ourselves on food until we feel sick and then tell stories.”

“I recall a similar practice on Vegetasei,” he looks contemplative, lost in a swarm of long-buried childhood memories.

“Oh?”

“My father would return from a purge with his men and bring my mother the finest jewels from the planet he recently conquered,” it's a rare display of honesty from Vegeta, and it's somewhat disarming. But she likes it, it makes her heart flutter and she can feel butterflies rioting in her stomach at the closeness he's offering her. Vegeta's cheeks are somewhat pink but he's smiling, so she takes all that she can and offers him a brilliant, beaming smile of her own.

“See, there we go! Every girl wants pretty jewellery for Christmas.”

“If my mother was extremely lucky, he'd offer her the head of the former ruler of aforementioned planet, and those who survived the battle would tell tales of the fight and boast their kill count over the celebration pyre.”

“Uhhh.. lets put a pin in that suggestion, okay?”

Vegeta shakes his head, bringing himself back to the present, and stares at Bulma with this smouldering intensity that makes her heart rabbit wildly. “Do you want anything for this 'Christmas'?”

It almost sounds like Vegeta is offering to get her a present, but that can't be right because it's Vegeta, but she fumbles and blubbers dumbly. “What?'

“You said that this festival involves gift giving,” he says, speaking slowly as if she were a child. “I asked you if you expected a gift.”

Bulma's face is glowing, and she can feel the heat radiating off of her skin. She wonders if he notices but again, probably not, because it's Vegeta. “Uh, no. Not really,” she laughs self-consciously to displace the awkward feeling rising in her chest, and he quirks a brow at her. “I mean what can you get the richest woman on the planet right? Ha!”

She devolves into semi-hysterical laughter and Vegeta rightfully looks at her as though she's a mad woman before turning on his heel and stalking out of the lab. Just before the automatic door hisses closed behind him he looks over his shoulder.

“By the way, the Gravity Chamber requires fixing, woman.”

------

“Bulma honey, are you sure you want to use a marmalade glaze instead of a honey one?”

Panchy is fussing about in the kitchen, hovering around Bulma like an annoying insect, and Bulma's already remarkably low tolerance for bullshit is reaching the end of its tether.

“Yes, mom.”

“I'm just saying,” her mother continues in that awful, sugar-sweet way of speaking she has. It makes Bulma's teeth ache and stomach curl. She's not sure how her dad has put up with it for so long. “You're just a young girl and you don't have much experience with this sort of thing.”

“Mom, I'm thirty.”

“Okay, dear.”

The kitchen is a mess of dishes, a ridiculous quantity for the amount of people they were cooking for, but Saiyan appetites were no joke and she isn't sure that even with enough food to feed every Capsule Corp. employee several times over it's going to be enough to fill Vegeta's stomach.

Her mother is long gone, downing whiskeys in the drawing room with her father; the ham is in the oven and she's working on a mammoth bowl of mashed potatoes when Vegeta walks in. Cooking isn't her forte and truth be told she has very little patience for it, but she must be doing something right because his nose is raised in the air and sniffing like a hound, practically salivating. He's shirtless, his muscles gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat, clearly fresh from his training, and Bulma is actually salivating.

She tries to ignore the scars, particularly the long, ugly ones on his back that are far too symmetrical to have been inflicted in battle, because they make tears spring involuntarily to her eyes and her throat seize up. She knows that her concern, especially her pity, would be unwelcome guests in Vegeta's life, so she steels herself and reserves her mourning for a man she barely knows for later. She wonders if he knows how many times she's sobbed into her mattress over him. She hopes he doesn't.

“What are you doing?” he asks her, unusually placid. He's eying the food in surrounding them, but he's also staring at her in fascination. Her skin is growing hot again, as it has an unfortunate habit of doing in his presence lately.

“It's Christmas, remember?”

She's not sure if he did remember. His focus for anything other than training and fighting androids/Kakarot is limited at best.

“Is that today?” He's still looking at her, though his expression has softened. He almost doesn't look like the Vegeta she has come to know over the last year. He's certainly a far cry from the harbinger of doom who threatened to end the entire planet only a year prior.

“No. It's tomorrow.”

“Tch.”

She tries to resume pulverising the potatoes but his gaze is hot and lingering and it's distracting her. He usually ransacks the kitchen for a meal and then retreats to his private quarters but today he's watching her and it's frazzling Bulma's brain.

“Why are you preparing a feast today if it doesn't begin until tomorrow?” Vegeta asks eventually. Bulma permits herself a quick glance in his direction and is surprised to find him perched on what little free counter space is left. It's a pose that is so human that it disarms her to see it adopted by an alien warrior.

“It's a Breifs' family tradition. We split the eating part over two days.”

“Are many people expected to attend?”

“Not really. Just family. Sometimes Goku and Chi Chi come over, or one of the other guys, but they're all pretty busy this year. Y'know, training. Yamcha used to spend it with us, but...” she trails off. It's been eight months but it's still a hard pill to swallow that this time they're over for good. Fourteen years is a long time to be with someone, and even though neither of them were happy towards the end she's not entirely sure what she's supposed to do now.

“Hng.”

He's not very vocal, but then again that just seems to be his personality, so with the conversation apparently done she once again tries to resume the simple task of mashing potatoes. Which still seems ostensibly impossible, because he's still ogling at her. She almost asks if his mother ever told him it was rude to stare, but catches herself at the last moment. He talks very little about his father, less so about his mother, and reminding someone with a raging temper who could break her neck as easily as a toothpick that his parents are dead isn't the best idea she's ever had.

With a huff Bulma abandons the still-lumpy potatoes and instead roots around in her pocket for a particular capsule; popping it open on the kitchen table. She rifles through the contents until she finds the package – wrapped neatly in cobalt paper – and hands it to Vegeta.

He glares at it, his expression morphing into his customary frown, and actually brings it up to his face to smell it, before shooting her an accusatory look. “Woman, what's this?”

Bulma grins and tries to act as though her insides haven't melted to a viscous goop, and she's actually only still standing through sheer force of will alone. “A present!”

“A present?” he repeats with far less enthusiasm.

“Yeah, genius. I told you that people give each other presents at Christmas, did I?”

“I thought this custom was for close companions?”

“You are my friend, jackass. Why do you think I nearly kill myself repairing machinery every day?”

“Tch.”

He's actually blushing and Bulma has to bite her lip to suppress the moan-laugh that rises in her throat at the sight of it. For the first time since he strut in like a damn half-naked peacock she feels like she has the upper hand.

“You're supposed to open it, you know.”

He murmurs a mixture of profanities and words (probably more profanities) in that language she doesn't understand, but begins to gently peel at the wrapping paper regardless. It always surprises Bulma that a creature so perfectly sculpted for destruction as he is is capable of being so careful and deliberate. Then again, Goku's heritage is as bloody as Vegeta's and though he thirsts for a good fight Bulma doesn't think Goku is capable of being anything but sweet. Perhaps Saiyans just aren't as inherently pugnacious and homicidal as Vegeta insists they are.

“Woman...” his name for her slips from his lips in a quiet gasp and he holds up the suit of armour she'd built him in nothing short of sincere wonder.

It's unlike his usual training sets, though the blue spandex battle suit is much the same. The shoulder pauldrons are far more pronounced, a burgundy cape attached to the left side, and the addition of matching tassets gives it a vague resemblance to the armour he first wore to Earth. The gloves she'd adapted to more closely resemble Spartan bracers, but he seems to notice little else but the image branded into the cuirass.

It's making her nervous, and she gnaws anxiously on her bottom lip before fiddling with her fingers. “I saw you draw it once, and I guessed it was like a royal crest or something and I thought you deserves some armour that was fit for an actual prince, ya know? And it is Christmas so I thought 'fuck it', it'll make a good present and...” Bulma was babbling again. Perhaps this wasn't a good idea. She doesn't actually know what the symbol means and it could be really offensive. “If I did something wrong I'm sorry...”

“No, it's...” It almost sounds like Vegeta is about to say something nice but he catches himself and gathers his new belongings in a flustered heap. “I have to go.”

He's gone in a blink of an eye, and it's only when the fire alarm starts shrieking at her that she realises something other than her skin is burning.

------

Being the brilliant, scientific genius that she is Bulma Briefs has long since stopped believing in Santa. That being said, when she awakes Christmas morning with a small box placed daintily in the centre of the unoccupied pillow besides her own, she can't help but wonder who else it could be from, if not from a jolly fat man himself.

She reaches for it almost nervously, unsure as to what to expect, and it sure as hell isn't the actual contents of the box. She tips it out onto her hand, and the small piece of polished meteorite – jet black with scattered flecks of amber and turquoise – that falls into her palm is cool and surprisingly smooth. A thin golden coloured chain has been passed through the middle of it, and she's trying to work out who left it there and why when she hears someone clear their throat.

“It's a fragment of the meteor that destroyed Vegetasei,” Vegeta is stood in her doorway looking rightfully uncomfortable, frowning slightly to himself and avoiding any semblance of eye contact. “Though I suppose it's likely a fragment of Vegetasei itself, considering there was no meteor. In any case, I had Nappa take me to retrieve it when I heard of my planets destruction.”

“Oh,” Bulma doesn't know what to say. What can she say to that? So she simply asks the first question that springs to mind. “Why?”

“It's Christmas,” he replies simply, though his voice is hot and brimming with embarrassment.

“It is Christmas,” she agrees.

She holds the necklace up by the chain to inspect it further, and her pulse leaps. There's a certain intimacy between them that has her veins throbbing with adrenaline, and she can't imagine what must have driven Vegeta to part with one of the few remnants of his planet that he had left. She's about to say something that could almost be considered as profound as it was sappy, when she notices he's already gone, no doubt unable to deal with the crushing awkwardness of the entire situation.

She thumbs the stone once more, and permits herself one small, fond smile.

“Thank you, Vegeta.”

------

She's speaking to an empty room, but she doesn't realise the Crown Prince of Saiyans is still lingering in the hallway between their rooms. Her gratitude pierces him like a spear, but he doesn't find it to be entirely unpleasant.When he is certain he is alone he permits himself his own smile before shaking his head free of such a pathetic expression and retreating to the Gravity Chamber.