A/N: This was written for The Prince and The Heiress September Drabble Night. Ten prompts, which have been included below, and ~100 words per each.
Prompt 1 - Stitches
Metal and energy have always been her craft, never fabric nor lace. Her shop sings to her, weaving images of welding and transformers in ways her hands have never been able to weave together threads. Bulma has never been one for stereotypes.
And yet in her life she has stitched and stitched: stitched shut her husband's battle wounds, stitched together a family, stitched new fibers for armor, stitched alliances from enemies.
It's not often that he falls apart, because her husband is a strong man but he has seen war, and so when he does she stitches him back together too.
Prompt 2 - Easel
She isn't sure what brought this on, but she had felt it coming deep in her bones. She felt it every time his face crumpled when Bulla told him she loved him, the way he tensed when Trunks called him the best dad ever.
So when she finds him curled up on a cliff bathed in moonlight, she just holds him to her chest while his worries and fears paint her blouse with tears.
The words whisper from his lips, so soft she can't even be sure they had been there.
I've made so many mistakes.
She wants to tell him there are no mistakes, only happy accidents, accidents that brought them together, accidents that brought them their family. But if there was anyone who unapologetically wore the sins of their mistakes on their sleeves, it was her husband.
Prompt 3 - Pins and Needles
Her lips touch his skin, pressing a silent question to his temple. What happened, my love?
His face twists farther into her chest, lips remaining unfailingly sealed, though his tear ducts did not. He likely regretted what he had already told her.
In their nearly two decades together, she had learned his ways. She could needle him all she liked but she would never pin him down, cagey as he was. Only her presence could temper his distress now, not her empathy.
And so the silence stretches out before them while he quiets in her arms.
Whatever had broken him, he would tell her in time.
Prompt 4 - Stuck Like Glue
Wind rustles the grass by his ears, his heightened senses picking up the intake of breath the woman gives when the cool breeze hits her. Hours had melted them together, her dozing lightly in his arms while his stare is affixed to the sky above.
His eyes are glued to the stars that herald his past, words stick in throat and he is stuck, torn between maintaining his silence and glueing himself to her, sharing until they are one mind across two bodies.
He pauses. Sharing is weakness and he is Saiyan and to be Saiyan means to be strength itself, but wasn't his own strength what got him into this mess in the first place?
Prompt 5 - Dream Weaver
"They haunt my dreams."
He doesn't say nightmares even though that's what he means, for he has never dreamed; in his youth night terrors stalked his sleeping hours on occasion, but now they weave in and out nightly of what should be sweet nothings of holding his family tight. Instead he looks down every night to see the deep red of his hands smearing his family with his crimes as well.
Is this a dream now? He doesn't know. He's confident he returned from hell all those years ago, but wouldn't that be a fitting punishment—luring him into complacency for years before flaying every good thing from his world just as he broke.
Her hand weaves through his hair, drawing his attention back to the crystal clarity he finds in her eyes. "Who haunts your dreams?"
"All the Bullas and Trunks that I took from this world."
Prompt 6 - Palette
He exhales through his nose. He fears her reaction, but even if his emotional attachments severed him from his Saiyan heritage, to give in to fear would contradict the very core of his being and so he presses on.
"The shirt you gave me so long ago was fitting. I am a bad man. And when I look at their faces," he shudders, "I see so many other families I have torn apart. So many mothers whose children I tore to pieces in front of their eyes. The infants I ended without a second thought…" A cool hand stroked his cheek, staying his sentence.
"Don't mistake me, I would kill, and kill, and kill again for our children. But—but..." But every drop of blood that has stained his hands and every drop that will stain his hands drags him further and further into the hell he will certainly be returning to when he dies, forever cut off from the only people he has ever loved and fuck, Kami, what was the point of ever feeling at all if it would only lead to—
And when he looks at her she is red like his dreams, but not the deep hemichrome of drying blood that haunted him.
Her smile is so bright in the pale reds of dawn's palette.
Prompt 7 - Unravel
"Who you were then… you're right, I can't pretend he was a good man." He tries to turn his head away, but she cups his chin and draws his eyes back to hers. "But you were good to me. And what matters now is not who you were, but who you are. And who you are is a man who has fought enemy after enemy more powerful than you, all to protect your family."
The dawning light warms them as she continues to pick at the knot of his insecurities until each thread unravels and she can follow it back to the source. Each concern is soothed and assuaged, her words and her hands and her lips wiping away every fear.
She was never any good at crafting, but she will always be good at him.
Prompt 8 - Thimble
The reds of dawn turn to the pale yellows of morning, sunlight breaking over the cliff.
"Home?" she asks.
He nods, entwining their fingers.
In that moment he swears he can feel her thoughts ghosting over his and is surprised to find not pity, but his own passion mirrored back. His sentimentality could not have filled a thimble years ago, but now his love overflows and he feels her own flood through him as well. But the feeling is intense and then gone, yet she is still there and he knows she always will be.
They cross the threshold hand in hand, where a little voice awaits them.
"Daddy!"
Prompt 9 - Button Up
A little blue bundle of energy pounces directly into her father's chest, beaming up at him. Her expression quickly sours, and she pushes away. "I'm mad at you! If you didn't come back soon, I was gonna go to Uncle Goku's so he could take care of me instead." It seemed their youngest was always up for pushing her father's buttons.
Vegeta's eye twitches. "You were going to do WHAT?"
"But I'm happy you're back 'cause I wanted you." Her bright blue eyes blink innocently, belied by her mischievous smirk.
His body relaxes, the tension seeping out. Bulma senses hesitation lingering from his night of contemplation and lays a hand on his shoulder. "You deserve her. You deserve all of us."
The corner of his mouth quirks up and he nods, taking their daughter's hand and leading her into the kitchen.
Prompt 10 - Paper Thin
In the weeks that follow, when Bulla tells him she loves him his face lifts, and when Trunks tells him he's the best dad ever he scoffs and tells Trunks that of course he is when he has people like Kakarot for competition.
He has always carried himself with pride but now he carries himself as if he's lighter than paper as well, a great weight removed from his shoulders. And when they slip into bed, she pours all of her love into every kiss and she can tell that he feels it, that he doesn't have to carry the sins of his past anymore, even if she doesn't say the words.
You're forgiven.