Pretty in Pink

Rating: PG

I don't own DBZ, only this story. This story is based in large part
on an episode called Frieza's Counterattack. Much of the memory
comes directly from that episode.

Enjoy!

Trunks was bored. He was beyond bored. It had been raining for two
days and he had been stuck inside the house. His mother was busy
with one of her experiments and his father was inside the gravity
machine, working out like always.

He wanted to go outside, but he had been forbidden by his mom. He
would have settled for playing with Goten, but Goten's mom had said
no. He pressed his face against the window and stared hard at the
sky willing the rain to stop. Of course, it didn't listen to him.
He was only a six year old boy, after all.

Leaning back, he breathed against the window pane and drew pictures
in the mist that his breath left behind. Frustrated, he wrote a bad
word, and then nervously wiped it away before anyone noticed. The
last time he'd actually said a bad word, it had been a close call.
His mother had almost caught him before he made it outside.

He backed off the chair he was leaning on and went in search of
something to do. He wasn't allowed in his mother's work room. His
attempts to help had caused one too many explosions and the room had
become No Man's Land.

He wandered down to the gym connected to the house and peeked through
the window in the door. He definitely didn't plan on bothering his
father while Vegeta was in the gravity chamber. That was a sure
fired way to end up restricted to his room.

Trailing his fingers along the wall, Trunks continued down the hall
to his room. He paused in the door way, but there was nothing there
to do. He'd already played with all the toys, drawn on all the
paper, and un-puzzled all the puzzles.

Vegeta had promised to take him to work out later in the afternoon,
but for a while longer, at least, Trunks was on his own. He kept
going down the hall, to his parent's room. Normally, he wasn't
allowed in there either, but he knew where both of his parents were,
so he decided to risk it.

He jumped onto their bed and flipped the tv on, but there was nothing
good on. Daytime soap operas bored Trunks and he couldn't find any
good cartoons. A wicked grin crossed his face. Since both of his
parents were occupied, he'd use the opportunity to jump on the bed.

He put all of his six years worth of enthusiasm into bounding about.
Their bed was so much bigger than his that it was way more fun than
jumping on his own bed. Still, even that lost its appeal after a
little while. It just wasn't as much fun without someone trying to
stop him.

He bounded onto the floor and landed in a crouch in front of the
closet. Thinking about it for a second, he shoved the door open and
looked in. His mother's clothes took up most of the space, but his
father had clothes neatly lined up along the wall. Trunks got
excited at the thought that his father might keep his armor in here.
Now that would be something fun to play with. It would shrink to fit
Trunk's body once he put it on and that way he could pretend to be a
full Saiyan warrior like his dad and Goku. Even Gohan was able to
transform at will into a SuperSaiyan.

Of course, he wouldn't risk powering up. Even from the gravity
chamber, his father would be sure to sense that. The last thing he
wanted was to bring down his father's wrath. The one time Trunks had
blasted a hole in the wall because of his carelessness, his father
had trained him until he was exhausted. And then his mother had
spanked him. Definitely not the way Trunks wanted to spend his
afternoon.

He pushed through the clothes, looking for the blue and white armor
that his father wore, but had no luck. What he did find was almost
as fascinating. A pink shirt. He jerked that off the hanger and
pulled it back into the bedroom.

Carefully, he laid it on the bed and backed up to study it. A pink
shirt? In all his life, he couldn't imagine his father wearing a
pink shirt. He studied it closely, noticing that it had definitely
been worn. There were threads that had frayed off the arm and the
Capsule Corp. logo sewn over the right arm had a small tear in it.

Trunks tried to imagine his father in pink and failed miserably.
Vegeta was far too macho to wear pink, wasn't he? Deciding to risk
getting in trouble for snooping, Trunks took the shirt with him and
went back to his mother's work room. He buzzed the intercom and his
mother's voice came out at him.

"Mom? Can I come in for a minute? I want to ask you a question."

"Sure, sweetie. Come on in." Trunks pushed the door open and walked
in. He ignored the machine parts scattered around the room and
walked over to where his mother was typing on her computer.

"Mom, is this shirt dad's?" He held it out questioningly.

Bulma turned to look at her son and burst out laughing as he held up
a pink shirt that did, in fact, belong to Vegeta. She laughed so
hard that she held her sides and bent over.

Trunks waited patiently. Obviously, this shirt did belong to his
father and for some reason his mother found that hysterical.
Finally, Bulma wiped tears out of her eyes. "Where did you find
that, Trunks?"

"In your closet." Trunks continued to wait, certain there was a
story.

Bulma quirked an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything about him
snooping. "That shirt does belong to your father. In fact, that was
the first shirt I ever gave him." She couldn't keep the grin off her
face. "Let's just say he wasn't very fond of it. I didn't even
realize he had kept it."

"When did you give it to him?" Trunks jumped into a chair next to
his mother and leaned forward.

"Well, I gave it to him on the day he got back to earth. He had gone
searching for Goku and hadn't been able to find him, so he came back
to earth. He crashed his ship into the front of the compound,
crushing your grandmother's gazebo and leapt out, instantly looking
for a fight."

Trunks nodded. That he could believe. His father often went
searching for a fight. "What happened?"

"I stopped him from beating on Yamcha." Bulma spoke bluntly and
Trunks could believe that, too. His mother was the only person he
knew who was not intimidated by Vegeta.

What Bulma wasn't saying was that she had already decided that she
was attracted to the Saiyan warrior. She wanted to keep him from
flying into a frenzy and blasting them all off the planet, so she had
stepped between the two hostile men and turned on her charm full
force.

"What's that smell?" she had asked. "Oh, it's you." She had leaned
towards Vegeta and pointed a finger into his chest. "When was the
last time you had a bath?"

She had turned to walk back into the house, stopping to call over her
shoulder, "Well?"

Vegeta had looked nonplussed but he growled and followed her, content
to leave Yamcha in one piece for the time being. She had taken him
into the shower and blushed beet red when he started stripping in
front of her. She had dashed out of the room, returning a few
minutes later to find him safely ensconced in behind the glass of the
shower door with the water beating down full force. She had been
able to see just enough to keep her interested through the door as
she gathered the clothing he had discarded, wrinkling her nose at the
smell.

She had thrown his clothes down the laundry shoot and laid out some
clean clothes for him to change into. Outside on the patio, Krillin
had joined Yamcha and Puar and they were discussing Vegeta's
obsession with finding Goku. She had dismissed their concerns, but
Vegeta's demanding voice interrupted her before she could defend him.

"Servant woman? Bring me a drying cloth! Woman! Can you hear me?"

She had turned to face the hallway, hands on her hips. "My name is
Bulma, not woman! And I am not your servant! If you want a towel,
say please!"

"What?!" Vegeta had sounded outraged. "Fine, I don't need your
help."

"Drip dry for all I care, you jerk!" Bulma was riled up now, but the
next outburst from the bathroom stopped her.

"IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE?" Vegeta bellowed. Inside the bathroom,
he was holding up a pink shirt, disbelief written on his face. "Is
this clothing for a man or a woman?!"

"What is it?" Bulma demanded.

"This shirt is PINK."

Bulma laughed. "That's the style here, silly."

"Men wear pink clothes. How bizarre!" With no options left besides
walking outside naked, Vegeta pulled on the clothes Bulma had left.

He slammed the door open and stalked out towards Bulma. "This is
ridiculous! I am a warrior not some variety of flower!" His face
was a thundercloud, but that didn't stop Bulma from laughing.

"Well, you certainly smell better..."

Trunks listened to this story fascinated. His father had worn a pink
shirt?

"Of course, pink or not, your father was still a warrior. He flew
out to face Frieza later that same day. That was the day we met you,
well, future you anyway. Of course, we didn't know that then."
Bulma reached across to ruffle her son's hair. "And you were so
amused at your father's wardrobe, even then."

She laughed to herself as Trunks jumped down. "Thanks, mom." He
laughed with her as he left the room, a plan forming in the back of
his brain. He hid the shirt in his room until later.

That night, when he went downstairs for dinner, he walked into the
room, proudly wearing his father's pink shirt. He was rewarded for
his bravery when his mother burst into laughter again and his father
choked on his water.

"Hey, dad." He smiled. "I bet you looked real pretty in pink."