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Everything was so damn bright. So gods-damn loud.
Of course Vegeta grasped the meaning of Christmas. He understood holidays, and he'd grown accostumed to Earth holidays by now. Christmas was special, though. Though his wife and her family didn't seem particularly religious, they insisted on observing this one holiday more intensely than any other — almost competitively, really. Every year, they went all out: the house was decked in tiny, twinkling lights, and covered in red and green fluff that made every hall look like a forest, and there was a blasted ten-foot-tall tree in the middle of the living room dripping in knick-knacks that made him wonder how could the woman could have possibly accumulated so many of in such a short lifespan...
He liked the feast, though. That, he had no issue with.
Still, it was all a bit too bright, too loud to his sharpened Saiyan senses. Though the twinkling lights were, as his wife put it, "very cute", they reminded him of enemy ships, or a distress signal. They put him a little on edge. Same for the constant holiday playlist on the background — the added noise just piled up the cacophony of daily life, and it got tiresome pretty fast. It got exponentially louder after Eschalotte, though. The girl had the healthiest lungs he'd ever seen. How could they fit in such a small ribcage was a mystery.
He endured it, though. Their planet, their customs.
Vegeta eyed the monstruous tree once again. One of Christmas' traditions was gift exchanging, something his wife was very excited about, and what his children loved above everything else about the holiday. He co-signed every gift with Bulma, but he had never actually bought anything; he wasn't raised in a very gifting environment, and his gifts were a little bit too practical for the holidays. Christmas wasn't about replacing torn gloves, or providing new training outfits. It was about more, whatever that meant. Vegeta was ashamed to admit that he spent the season indeed worrying about it. What was more? He was expected to gift his wife something, but what could he possibly give to the woman who had quite possibly everything?
He knew Bulma loved to cover herself in scents and oils and creams. She had them in the dozens, though, and the idea of smell-hunting made his Saiyan nose burn. He also knew she loved clothing, but she already owned more outfits than she could wear in ten years — not to mention he liked her in as little clothes as possible, anyway. She was impossible to gift. The damned woman found another way to be just impossible. But after much thought with his incomparable Royal Saiyan brain, he worked something out.
Eschalotte's screams broke Vegeta's focus on the tree. Apparently, her grandparents had gotten her a sleigh — the pinkest, frilliest sleigh the human eye could take — and she was over the moon about it.
"What do we say, Bulla, honey?" He saw Bulma ask, eggnog in hand.
"Oh, thank you, Grandpa! Thank you, Grandma," Vegeta watched his daughter beam, a princess in every syrupy word. She was dressed in a cozy, Christmassy tartan dress that made her look like a poster girl for the holidays. Eschalotte rose to her feed and hugged her grandparents, jumping for joy, and Vegeta fought with every fiber of his being not to ask her for a hug too. Damn girl had him wrapped around her finger.
"Let's try it outside!" Trunks was already putting his coat on, reaching for his sister's also. "The snow's still fresh, so there's less risk of you losing a tooth or something."
"Don't even joke about that, young man," Bulma chastised, pointing a finger at him. "And put some boots on her too! I want her to come home with all of her toes!"
Trunks made a face at his mom, then rushed his sister and grandparents outside, all dying to see Eschalotte try her gift on the snow that piled up on their yard. The boy decided to watch from above, hovering a few feet above everyone else, ready to pick his sister from the ice should it go awry. Vegeta watched his daughter slide down a small pile of snow, decide it wasn't quite as thrilling as she wanted it to be, climb down from the sleigh and command her grandfather to help her build a bigger mountain to slide off of.
"There goes Princess Bossy again," chuckled Bulma, sipping her eggnog.
Vegeta took great offense. "She's not bossy. She's headstrong. Determined."
"Saiyan."
"Saiyan."
Vegeta felt Bulma touch his back. "You're getting better at Christmas. There was no physical wincing at the kids' screaming at all this year."
"The boy hardly ever screams anymore. He takes his presents like a man now."
"Like a man. Wow," Vegeta knew she was making fun of him, but he had a more pressing matter at hand now. The timing was perfect — they were alone, and they were hardly ever alone during Christmas, so there would be no better time for it. He had to give Bulma her gift right now.
Vegeta marched towards the tree and grabbed two little boxes stashed under it — one red, one green. They were small and unassuming, as he made them to be, and blended so well with the other gifts that no one else in the house could see them unless they knew what they were looking for. When he turned around, he caught Bulma's stare, brow furrowed at him.
"What is that?" Bulma asked, slow and suspicious. He didn't answer; instead, he walked in her direction, standing close enough to Bulma that only they could hear whatever they would say next. Realisation dawned on her, and she smiled half-jokingly, as if a sincere smile would ruin this very moment. "Did you get me a gift?"
The Saiyan handed her the red box. It was obviously a small jewelry box, and Bulma took it excitedly. She put her mug on a table nearby and studied the box for a minute before opening it.
It was a ring. A bright, silvery-white ring, adorned with a line of dark blue stones. Bulma couldn't tell if they were sapphires or azurites, or something else entirely; what she could tell is how oddly beautiful they looked, as if there were millions of tiny stars inside of them, that sparkled when the light caught on them at different angles. She turned it around a few times, trying to understand how they reflected the fairy lights in such a unique way, but saw nothing in the cut or the polish that would make them behave like that. These stones were truly alien to her.
It was Vegeta who broke the silence. "I was far too young when I was taken from home. I had the royal education a boy my age and social status would have, but I didn't have it for long. Although planet Vegeta is home, I have many... gaps... on how it really was. I don't know how these stones are called, I'm sorry to say. They might not even be Saiyan, to be honest. But they were my mother's." He paused, and Bulma's breath caught on her throat. "These were in a ring she had. A ring I took with me when I was recruited into Frieza's army. It was the only evidence I had of her existence, other than my memories."
They said nothing for a while. Bulma knew not if she dared. Vegeta went on. "My memories get less and less clear by the day. I hardly remember her face. I go whole months without thinking about her, and when I do, I find it more difficult to visualise her than I did the last time. Enough time has passed us by that I remember the feeling of being near her better than I remember herself." Bulma saw his knuckles go white around the green box, as if gripping it for dear life. “That ring was proof she was real, and she was my mother. She was my Saiyan lineage. She was our Queen. And I tarnished her memory by keeping it hidden away. I was so afraid to lose it that I kept it away from anyone; I thought I was hiding it like a treasure, but it was more as if I was burying it like a casket. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
"Our Queen lives in you. You're my mate, who I've chosen to be by my side as Queen Consort. You should wear my mother’s gemstones, however they’re called. I took half of them from her ring and commissioned you a new one.”
“You’ve been to a jeweler?”
“Nearly killed the man with these. Naturally, he’d never seen them before. But I took him one of your rings and had him make this new one to your size. The metal is new. It’s white gold, it’s what you like, right? I wanted it to fit in with your collection.”
“It’s beautiful.” Bulma said, nearly breathless. She slid the ring on her finger, cozying it just above her wedding band. It felt heavy on her hand. It wasn’t often that Bulma wondered if she was worthy of something, but this ring felt too important. Too great. She was almost afraid to touch it. Tears pooled in her eyes. “Just beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing you could have gotten me. I have no words.”
Vegeta nodded once, but said nothing for a minute. When he spoke again, it was barely more than a whisper. "What else coud I give to a woman who has the Earth at her feet?"
Bulma followed her husband's eyes as he stared at his her, then at her hand, then at the ring. She couldn't know what was going inside of that thick, Saiyan skull. She would never know how right this whole ordeal felt to him. Vegeta reveled silently in the feeling. He turned the green box in his hands, and Bulma noticed it.
“And what did you do to the rest of the ring?”
He held the green box up. “I had one made for Eschalotte. I trust you to give it to her, when she’s of age.”
Bulma wept openly now. She threw her arms around her husband in a tight hug, and did her best not to sob as he held her back.
“Stupid Saiyan. How dare you have a better gift than me!”
Vegeta chuckled, still holding his wife. His instincts were screaming at him to break the hug, to dry her tears, and to not let anyone notice their embrace, to not be seen kissing the top of her head, to not let the outside world see such blatant weakness in him. But the lights were twinkling, and the music was playing, and his daughter was laughing, so he held Bulma a little longer. He allowed himself to have everything for a minute.