I KNOW YOU HATE ME I SUCK SO MUCH I AM SO SORRY T_T

Okay, well, the last chapter I was pretty clearly phoning it in. Seriously, I was just wallowing in my own inability to come up with anything akin to plot and, in an effort to get a chapter out, just shucked whatever I could onto paper. But! After speaking to the friend who started me writing this fic to begin with (and she is quite mad) we came up with a few ideas which I myself quite liked, and I suppose my only hope is that you like them too. Onward then.

It had been a few days since Veille's fated hatching. The days had been easy and slow—Piccolo had had no more unsuspected visits from unwanted individuals—and strangely enough, he was beginning to realize the child's presence was not completely awful. He didn't cry or whine or make more of a nuisance of himself than expected. No, he did it just right amount. And there was a maturity in the boy's accepting apathy that made him easy to treat as a full grown adult, even though it was quite clear that he wasn't one. But that was alright, because the older Namekian could be adult enough for the both of them.

Day by day, Piccolo could feel himself almost physically growing in his capabilities as a parent. Admittedly, it had mostly been trial and error, but sometimes to make a cake you had to break a few eggs. So far he'd avoided actually breaking anything, but he didn't think he could hold out much hope towards his fortune managing to last. After all, the entire scope of parental knowledge involved carrying an egg around in a sling, and flinging small boys at mountains. Bones were going to be broken. And if sparring sessions with Gohan could serve as any indication, they would probably be his own.

At any rate, one of the most important things that he had learned the last few days was this: children could not be depended on to bathe themselves. They just could not do it. It was just lightyears beyond the very limited capacities of their little brains. Children apparently also did not know how to swim unless you had already taught them. Apparently they couldn't even grasp the science of floating on their own, as when Piccolo had put Vielle down in a nearby lake with the simple intention of leaving him to soak for a while, the child had sunk like a stone and quite nearly gotten eaten by a rock fish before Piccolo rescued him. And for fear of his only child being eaten by some ugly fish, he conceded that perhaps he'd have to be a little more hands-on with his approach.

Washing Vielle was neither fun nor particularly noteworthy, but true enough, it seemed to serve as something akin to a bonding experience. Anytime the water got to any point above Vielle's chin, the boy would dip his head to take a mouthful of water in his cheeks, at which point the elder Namekian would give his swelled face a gentle poke and all the liquid would come dribbling out.

"You shouldn't drink that," Piccolo mumbled after what must have been the seventh time. "You'll get beaver fever."

Vielle looked up quizzically, his cheeks having a comical jiggle to them. Though the child had yet to say anything more coherent than a slight mumble, he seemed to have a capacity to understand language, and Piccolo had the feeling his small admonishments never fell on deaf ears. The many sideways glances and head-tilts he received were beginning to fill up a dictionary on their own, and by now he could understand them just as easily as the spoken word. And just then, Vielle was wondering what beaver fever was.

Piccolo gave Vielle a sober look in an effort to communicate that this was very important information he was instilling into the boy, and then said, "It's a condition you get from drinking the same water as some radioactive beavers that were let out into the forest a few years ago." He nodded. "Because of the creatures' despicable radioactivity, if one is so hapless as to drink the same water as them, one is doomed to turn into a ravenous, radioactive beaver themselves and then keep eating logs until they explode."

Vielle furrowed his brows incredulously.

"It's true. Keep drinking that water and you'll see. You'll mutate into the must hideous hungry beaver in the world. Then I'll have no choice but to give you to some other radioactive beaver family to do radioactive beaver things with. It's a very serious condition. It tears hundreds of families apart every year, which is why you should-"

Vielle squirted the beaver-fever infested contents of his mouth right between Piccolo's eyes. The elder Namekian stared down at him blankly, even as the child let out the small half-sound of his that was usually indicative of a laugh. Eventually he sobered up and looked at his father was expectant delight, to which Piccolo responded with a sneer. Without a hint of fanfare, Piccolo wiped his face, looked at his hand, and then let out the most melodramatic yowl the world had ever known.

"Vielle, what have you done?" He said, staggering back in the water, the back of his hand thrown against his forehead as though to turn off the part of him that outwardly scoffed at such shenanigans. "You've…you've infected me…! I'm going to become a beaver!" He blinked at the boy dazedly, and scooped him up out of the water. "Vielle, did you know that you are quite green—like a sapling. I can feel my instincts taking over…I think…I might have no choice…but to eat you!"

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?"

Piccolo dropped Vielle instantaneously, before throwing his arms into the water and quickly fishing the boy back out before he drowned. Even though he would much rather have avoided it, he still raised his head to the bank, and cheeks flaring with embarrassment, regarded the intruder: none other than the royal pain himself, standing in his training cloths and toting a plastic bag beneath his arm.

"Vegeta," Piccolo growled at that sneering face. "What do you want?"

The saiyan blinked in mock pain. "You aren't glad to see me?"

"Don't shortchange yourself that way. You, Vegeta, are my vision of hell."

"Tut tut tut!" Vegeta chimed, which sounded absolutely ridiculous in that absurd man-voice of his. "Now, is that any way to talk to someone who comes bearing gifts?"

"Are you talking about that odious smell you've been exuding for the last ten minutes?" Piccolo said flatly. "In which case, you can keep your gift. In fact, I might even have to give you something. Namely, a bottle of cologne, because you smell like a caramelized donkey. When was the last time you bathed?"

"I've been training for a week straight—I haven't had time to fret over such ridiculous niceties."

Piccolo wrinkled his nose in disgust. A week without so much as a cold shower. Charming. "You know, one would think a prince might have some concept of personal hygiene. Honestly, did your parents teach you anything besides how to bash open planets with your forehead?"

"I don't see why they would have," Vegeta shrugged, and picked a little bit of dirt out from under his fingernails. "That's the only thing that's of any importance, anyway."

"Indeed." Piccolo picked Vielle up out of the water and slowly began to move to the edge so they could get out and end this stupid conversation. Vegeta looked at him quizzically at first, and when the Namekian began to step out, his expression turned to one of horror.

"Whoa, wait a second, aren't you going to magic yourself a towel or—" Piccolo stepped fully out of the water, and with that, the saiyan prince reeled back on his heels, his eyes on his hands and lips twisted upwards. "Ugh! I think I just saw my vision of hell! Give me a second, I think I might have just gone permanently blind."

Piccolo rolled his eyes. "I don't see why you had the urge to take a peek to begin with." He waved his hand absent-mindedly, clothes instantly appearing on both himself and Vielle. When Vegeta took an experimental glance between his finger to make sure all was well, he smirked. "Did you see anything that you liked?"

"No! Save the flirting for your husband, stupid Namek!"

"Stop calling Gohan my husband, you short, smelly man!"

"Hey, squirt," Vegeta looked pointedly at Vielle. The child looked back blankly. "Watch out for this guy. He's a serious deviant—and that's the type of thing that's genetic. If anything happens, call my wife. She'll actually give a crap."

"Please go home to where people dislike your presence slightly less than me."

"Didn't I say I brought something?"

"And didn't I say I don't want your putrid gifts? Go home!"

Vielle glanced away from the two arguing men, then to the plastic bag beneath Vegeta's arm. As though he could tell it was for him, he gestured lightly to it with the back of his hand, and though the motion was barely discernable both men stopped.

"Heh, the squirt can tell a good thing when he sees it, huh?" The saiyan took the bag from beneath his arm and held just beyond the child's reach. He grinned widely as he jiggled it up and down, causing the bits inside to knock against each other. "You want it, kid? Huh? You want it? Do you? Do you? D-"

"Knock it off," Piccolo said with a decisive slap to Vegeta's head. "Just give it to him, would you."

"Stick in the mud." He pulled back the back, and with unnecessary gusto, he pulled it open to reveal—small bits of coloured plastic, which the Namekian could not understand at all. At Piccolo's clear lack of enthusiasm, Vegeta scowled and dropped the bag on the ground in less than subtle irritation. "It's Lego," he snapped while Piccolo set Vielle down beside the bag so he could investigate the matter further. "The woman told me to give them to you. She says they're good for your kid's brain—make him an inventor or something. Honestly, I think she's trying to indoctrinate him."

The pieces hit against each other when the child reached his hands in and began sifting through them. Not that Piccolo was concentrating on he noticed that a number of the pieces

"Are you sure it's alright to give him those? Don't children have a tendency to put things like that down throats and eyeballs and the like?"

"Eyeballs? What kind of child-rearing books have you been reading?"

"You know that's not what I meant!" Piccolo snapped and threw his hands out towards the boy. "He might suffocate on those!"

The saiyan just rolled his eyes. He waved his hand dismissively and said, "Don't worry about it. Trunks used to shove these up his nose all the time and he turned out just fine."

Piccolo thought back for a moment. Trunks, who had been the dominant brain of that idiot Gotenks, Trunks, who had decided it was a good idea to enter the adult portion of the World Tournament, Trunks, who did nothing but bash his head against things and eat himself silly—that Trunks.

"Define 'fine.'"

"Look," Vegeta said with suspicious speed. "He's already playing with them."

Piccolo glanced down, and sure enough, Vielle had already laid out all the pieces on the ground and was slowly building them into something.

"See?" said Vegeta, gesturing to Vielle's creation. "All's well. And look at how orderly everyone is—he's making his Lego boring like his mother."

"As backhanded as that was, I suppose you're right," Piccolo murmured. "He seems to like them...I wonder why he's making them all walk in straight lines?"

"Except for those policemen, there. They're directing them."

"And those walls are quite high, aren't they? Especially with such a solid door."

"And there's those-" Vegeta stopped dead, and both of the stared in tense silence at the lego-world Vielle had put together, just this side of horrified. Neither really wanted to say it, but there was no use in letting it go unsaid. "Are those…" Vegeta squinted his eyes in disbelief. "Are those surveillance towers?"

There was nothing more to say about it than that. Piccolo scooped Vielle up, pulled away the lego citizen he held in one hand like a steel claw and threw it on the ground. "I think I need to go."

"I think that's a good idea."

"Don't give him anymore gifts."

"I've learned my lesson."

And Vegeta didn't say anything more than that as Piccolo took off into the sky and left him behind.

…

"He was doing what now?"

"Surveillance towers!" Piccolo exclaimed to one confused Dende, his hands pushing over his antennae as he paced back and forth across the lookout. "Can you believe it? He's just a child, for goodness sake, how does he know about that sort of thing?"

"Well…" Dende looked over towards where Vielle and Mr. Popo were planting flowers in the garden, his gaze on them light and not even slightly judging. "Maybe it's not so surprising…"

"Not surprising? Not surprising! It's mortifying!" the older Namekian snapped, his disbelief utterly boundless. "This isn't the sort of thing that's supposed to happen in this day and age. It's—it's completely—" He took a break from his panicking when he realized Dende just wasn't indulging his unreasonable fits of panic as much as he was used to, which in his mind did not correlate with good things. "What?" he said. "You're not telling me something. What is it?"

The young Namekian looked up worriedly, as though he was afraid of his answers effect. He pursed his lips and glanced skywards briefly so he could diffuse the paranoid current passing from Piccolo to him.

"Piccolo…maybe…" He cleared his throat briefly. If the boy wasn't god, Piccolo might knocked him on the head for taking so long. "Well, I've only heard stories, but your father passed down his memories to you, didn't he?"

Piccolo narrowed his eyes. "Yes…?"

"So maybe…maybe they-"

He didn't have to say it—Piccolo was already one step ahead, and he had no problem with showing it.

"You think they went to Vielle!" He yowled and snatched Dende by his collar, lifting him a good half foot off the floor. "Are you insane? Do you know what that would mean!"

"Calm down, calm down! Look, I'm sure it's just a phase. You had those memories too and you turned out great, Piccolo."

"Half of the people he deals with were complete megalomaniacs at one time or another!" The Namekian cried and tossed Dende back to the floor so he could better throw up his arms. "We're doomed!"

"Piccolo, you're exaggerating—grossly," said Dende, picking himself up and dusting himself off. "Besides, he's your son! You have to trust him a little more than that. I'm sure he's been lonely up until now. Why don't you try acclimate him to people? Show him that there's a lot to like about them."

"That's impossible."

"What? Why?"

"I'm afraid the boy is quite astute, Dende," he replied. "I think he'll be quick to notice that I'm lying."

"Why are you such a pessimist? Just look, Piccolo." Dende took Piccolo by his wrist and dragged him to the edge of the lookout. He opened his hand and stretched it out towards an expanse of green and blue that rolled on and out for miles before finally colliding on the horizon. It was the kind of sight that, no matter how great and grand you thought you were, was sure to humble you. And when Dende smiled up at him, he had the same bright expanse inside his eyes. "There's a big wide world out there for him to see."