Work Text:
Happy Christmas
The seasons on Earth had changed once more, and although West City was in the climate zone humans classed as ‘sub-tropical’, the air still grew crisp and the days shortened as the winter solstice came and passed. He had vague memories of a holiday being celebrated on Vegetasei when the air turned cold. After so many years - his whole life - of slavery and homelessness, it was an uneasy feeling to still be in the same location after four years, witnessing the same holiday for the fourth time.
He always kept the humans at arms length; he did not want to partake in any of their rituals, but he was an observant bastard and always would be - other than his strength it was this particular skill that had kept him alive all those years when so many others had died by Frieza’s hands. He’d always made sure not to push that monster’s buttons too much, at least until he’d been desperate. A shiver ran down his spine as he shook away the memory of his own death, a slight hitch in his breath the only outward sign that something was amiss. Beside him at the table, Bulma looked up from her phone, blue eyes piercing him with that same intensity that always stopped him in his tracks. They hadn’t been intimate since he’d abandoned her while she was pregnant; now their son was almost one, and still he hadn’t sought the company of any other females since her. It seemed he was waiting for her to come back to him. Or perhaps he was waiting for his pride to ease just a little, enough to allow him to go to her. He would never ask for forgiveness, but he had a feeling she knew that and would understand anyway.
“Everything alright, Vegeta?”
“Fine,” he grunted, and stood from the table. He deposited his cutlery in the sink for the bots to clean, and headed for the gravity chamber.
“It’s Christmas tomorrow,” she called, and he paused in the doorway that led down the hall.
“I know,” he told her.
. . .
He was an observant bastard, and over the years he had observed that Bulma loved both spoiling her friends with gifts, and also receiving gifts from others. He’d questioned it once with her; she was one of the wealthiest people on her planet, why did she care that people far poorer than her buy her gifts?
“Because it’s the thought that counts. Besides, gift giving is pretty much a standard practice amongst every single culture on Earth; it’s a way of cementing social ties with others.” She’d been angry at him at the time, so had muttered, “Not that you would know, arrogant dickhead,” under her breath, not yet realising the true extent of his hearing abilities. She knew better these days; now when she muttered insults about him it was on purpose so that he would hear. He smiled at the memory of her doing so just a few days prior.
The thought that she loved getting gifts niggled at him while he trained, just enough to interrupt his focus and made the morning’s session relatively ineffective. By time lunch rolled around, he had resolved himself to the fact that he needed to get her a gift for her beloved Christmas. He had been listening to her when she talked about it, had been paying attention when he watched the way humans interacted whenever gifts were exchanged. It really did help cement their relationships.
He wanted a relationship with her.
He leaned his head against the tiles as the warm spray of the shower hit his back, wondering how the fuck he got to this point. It wasn’t just the sex, though she had the best pair of tits that he’d ever seen, and her pussy that tasted better than any meal he’d ever had. Now that he was on the verge of making this life-altering decision to actively pursue her, part of him lamented all the time he’d already wasted spent in a single bed when she was sleeping just down the hall.
She was loyal. Loyal to him; she’d chosen him time and time again, despite her friends warnings, despite his murderous past. He knew she hadn’t touched another man since him, the realisation that she’d been waiting for him to make the first move this time around hitting him suddenly. Once it was there he couldn’t unsee it, nor could he understand why he hadn’t seen it before. She’d been waiting for him, and was still waiting now.
“Idiot,” he muttered to himself as he towelled himself off.
. . .
What do you get the woman who has everything, when you yourself have nothing? This was his next dilemma. He could, of course, acquire anything he wanted on this planet with ease, but the thought of her turning down a gift he’d stolen made his stomach clench uncomfortably.
He had a tablet - one she’d given him last Christmas - and he resorted to google, screwing his nose up at the results. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling - there was nothing good, nothing that fit right for Bulma. And he had no money on this planet to buy anything anyway.
Tossing the tablet on the bed, he stared at the wall and the silly picture frame Bulma had left for him; it held a picture of a ridiculous yellow smiley face and the words Don’t Worry, Be Happy! printed in rainbow colours underneath it. She’d stuck it there to piss him off, her grin huge on the day he’d walked in to find her nailing it to the wall. She’d even admitted to him that she’d hung it off-centre, knowing it would drive his OCD-ass insane. He didn’t know what the letters OCD stood for on this planet, but had noted from the context that it appeared to be someone who actually took care of their surroundings, instead of living in a disguising mess as she tended to do.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy! Those words seemed to taunt him now; the most ridiculous of quotes that he’d ever heard. Even Saiyans had been better with words than that, though poetic sayings had been few and far between. He’d studied what little there was of Saiyan literature on Frieza’s database between missions; had consumed everything about Saiyan culture that he could get his hands on, though he never admitted this to anyone. There was one saying for lovers about the moon -
He froze as the idea formed in his mind. Part of him winced at the cheeziness of it, but he pushed that thought aside in favour of the fact that this would be meaningful, and cost nothing. Before he could change his mind he was lifting the frame off the wall, pulling it apart and taking out the poster inside. He turned it over to the back - it was plain white paper on the other side, good - and found a black pen in the small desk he kept in the corner of his room. Then he wrote in his own language;
The heart beats fast under a full moon. Beside you, it beats faster.
He wanted her to know what it said, so he wrote the words again, this time in her language. He finished it off with his signature, the angular strokes of the Saiyan alphabet a jarring contrast against the rounded curves of the human one. When the ink was dry he placed the paper back in the frame, clipping the pieces together once more.
He felt like a fool. Which meant it was probably a good gift for a human female.
. . .
He’d almost chosen the cowardly way and left the gift for her on her bed, but once he’d set his mind to something he liked to see things through, liked to do things well, and so he’d wrapped the gift in brown paper, written her name on the front, and left it under the tree with all the others on Christmas morning. There was a crowd this year; with Kakarot’s passing, his family were now included in many of Bulma’s events, and he was not surprised at all to see the harpy wife and Kakarot’s brats present in the living room, alongside Yamcha.
She gave him new armour and a phone, as well as surprising him with blueprints for a new type of training bot. He had to hold himself back from leaning into her as she stood beside him, blueprint in hand, explaining away about her new upgrades and how it would improve his training. Then he’d caught Yamcha staring at them with barely-disguised disgust, and he had leaned into her, until her sweet-scented hair had tickled his nose as he murmured “Thank you,” in her ear. Her breath had hitched at the contact, her eyes dancing over his face and lingering on his mouth, but Trunks chose that moment to scream for attention and the bubble they were momentarily in popped.
Her father was the designated “Santa” who passed out all the gifts - there was a joke there he didn’t quite understand, something about his appearance - and the gift for her was the last to be handed over. “Who is is from?” Kakarot’s wife asked, adding “I thought there was no one left.”
“It’s from Vegeta,” she replied quietly, a thoughtful expression on her face. He hadn’t written his own name on the wrapping paper, knowing she would recognise his handwriting from the five letters of her name alone. Her fingers danced across the word, and she seemed almost reluctant to open it.
He wanted to leave the room, but forced himself to stay rooted to his spot near the door. The silence in the room felt charged, and there was more than one pair of curious eyes on him as she tore into the paper. He watched her face carefully as she opened it, saw the moment she read the words, and then read them again, her mouth dropping open in a silent ‘o’ even as her eyes grew red with moisture.
“What is it?” her mother asked.
“It’s - “ she paused, her eyes meeting his across the room, unshed tears very close to spilling. He held her gaze as she blinked them away with a shaky breath. “It’s a promise.”
He nodded. Yes. It was.
. . .
He excused himself soon after; he’d return for the Christmas lunch, but he was not a social creature, and one morning of her friends and family was more than enough to grate on his nerves. He’d expected her to remain with them, hadn’t expected to hear her footsteps following him down the hall in a rush. When he turned she was almost upon him, looking far more vulnerable than he’d ever truly witnessed before. She’d worn an armour around herself even when she’d informed him of her pregnancy, having already expected his dismissive reaction. Now she was different, and his mind immediately likened her to an open wound, a gruesome thought but one he could understand. She needed help to pull those edges of the flesh together. His arms opened for her automatically, and as she stepped into them, burying her wet face in the crook of his neck, he thought I will be the stitches that bind you.
She was trembling, and he stroked her back, pulling her even closer against him, feeling the ribs under her shirt. She was too thin; she’d been working herself too hard this past year. She was still grieving for Kakarot, and missing the presence of their older son. He knew this, because he was doing the same. Kakarot’s death had affected him far differently than he ever anticipated, and sometimes the gnawing feeling that he was the last one and entirely alone in the universe now threatened to consume him.
Her fingers dug into his back, her lips pressing just under his ear, and all thoughts of loneliness dissipated. In her warm embrace he was not alone. He would never be alone again - for as long as she lived - and he planned on doing everything in his power to ensure she lived a very very long life.
“Happy Christmas,” he murmured against her hair.
Unexpectedly, she gave a little laugh. “What?”
“Happy Christmas. Is that not what you humans say on this silly holiday of yours?”
She hummed, a small smile gracing her lips as she pulled back to look at him. Even tear stained and blotchy, she was still the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. She leaned her forehead against his, and for once in his life he was actually grateful for his short stature, for it meant they fit perfectly together like this.
“It’s Merry Christmas. But thank you.”
He wanted to complain that this was another example of human idiosyncrasies, because he knew it was Happy Birthday that they said on the day of one’s birth, but instead he whispered, “It is a promise,” into the small gap between their lips. This close, her blue eyes filled his vision, the same blue as the evening sky here on this planet, a sure sign that this was where he was meant to be.
“I know.” She pressed her lips to his, a delicate brush at first, until he took control with a hand at the back of her head and a slanting of their lips, and they moaned into each other’s mouths as their tongues met and she ground against the sudden hardness in his shorts.
“Bulma! We’re going to do the Christmas crackers! We can’t have Christmas without our silly hats!” It was her mother calling, and they sprang apart just as she added “Oh! Am I interrupting something?” in her tittering voice that drove him insane. How such a genius could be born of such idiocy never failed to amaze him, and he was thankful he’d already met his older son a knew for a fact that the boy had inherited intelligence rather than stupidity.
“Mom! Just give us a minute, okay?”
“It’ll take more than a minute, dear. At least I hope so.”
“MOM!”
He was often mortified by the vulgarity that came out of these females’ mouths, and this was one such moment. That bluntness when it came to discussing sexual matters was something that Bulma had inherited, though from the colour in her cheeks he could tell she was bothered by the older woman’s comments. “Mom, I’ll be out in one minute. I’m just talking to Vegeta, okay?”
He ignored the other woman’s giggling and her dismissive wave, and when they were alone once more he decided that he was curious enough to see if something he said could bring that colour to Bulma’s cheeks. He’d never been a dirty talker, but today was a day of firsts for him, and he recognised it for what it was. He was done being stagnant, done being battered along in life by external forces, whether it be Frieza or androids or any other threat. He was powerful. This was a day for action.
He pulled her back against him, the press of her backside against his cock making him growl against the soft skin of her shoulder, where her eyesore of a jumper had fallen away. “It is a promise, and I have another promise for you,” he whispered darkly in her ear, and felt her shiver beneath his fingers. Good. “I’m going to lick that cunt of yours tonight until you’re begging for mercy. Until you beg for this,” he added, grinding against her. “Be ready, Woman, because I’m going to do that to you every day for the rest of your life. This I swear.”
His teeth dragged against the skin of her neck, the great beast within him still there, despite the loss of his tail, revelling in the way this weaker creature shivered in his arms. She was his.
“Go enjoy your party. You and I will have our fun when the day is over.”
He stepped back, watching as she stumbled forward, her cheeks bright red and her eyes bright as she smiled at him. “Merry Christmas,” she murmured, and he felt himself grinning back, the expression one she’d only ever see.
“Oh it will be merry, make no mistake about that.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
He watched her go, nodding at her when she lingered in the doorway, turning back to look at him once more. He stood there long after she left, allowing himself to acknowledge that in this moment he felt good.
“Happy Christmas, Vegeta,” he murmured to himself as he entered the training chamber, mulling over the fact that by gifting Bulma something so small he had in fact just gifted himself a chance at happiness.
A/N: Okay, wow, it's been a long time! This idea popped into my head yesterday and although I'm supposed to be working on my original fiction right now, I couldn't not write this out. I hope it brings a little Christmas cheer to anyone that reads this.
I used to joke about how one time I disappeared from fandom for a bit and someone assumed it was because I'd had a baby, and how wrong that assumption was because YOU CAN DO BOTH and then I had a baby in 2020 and wow, I'm eating my words now because motherhood kicked my butt haha. I'm forever amazed at mums that can balance things better than I can, because my creativity and concentration was shot for a good 13 months after I had my son and even then, I've only started writing again this year.
I miss all the people in fandom that I used to interact with - hi if this is you and you're reading this!
I'm not going to be publishing fics on here regularly at this stage because I have to be disciplined about my writing time - I'm working on my first original novel, and plan to publish it to Kindle on October 1st 2023. But if I stay on track with that I hope I can start to balance out my time and pop back into fandom too. I owe so much to this fandom; without it I would have never started writing and would not have had the practice I needed to feel like I can finally go and write some of my own stories.
So that's a wee update on me and where I've been! If you want to follow along with my original work (the first series is going to be in the paranormal romance/monster smut categories, with the first book about a werewolf and his human - I shouldn't be surprised that this is the idea that finally stuck because I've only been obsessed with a certain were-creature alien *cough, cough, Vegeta* for the past 2 decades!) then you can find me on Facebook as Allegra Hall, instragram as @author.allegra.hall, and on twitter as @Author_AllegraH. You can even email me at [email protected] - I'll be setting up a proper mailing list soon.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you all!
Much love,
Pic/Allegra