Short Story 1 Post Buu Saga:

There Is No Kill Like Overkill

"Namek did you just throw my child into a mountain!?"

"Yes"

"And would you care to explain why the hell do you think hurling my son into a hunk of rock is an effective way to train him?"

"Hey now!" Gohan interjected worried that Piccolo and Vegeta were going to start a serious fight if this conversation kept going, "It's very effective, Piccolo threw me into plenty of mountains when I was even younger than Trunks and I turned out just fine!"

"Fine, you?" laughed Vegeta "you spend half your time running around in a fucking cape playing Superhero and the other half hiding your powers and pretending to be a weak, pathetic human! Namek if my child ends up like this brain damaged moron I swear to the Kai's I will end you." Vegeta made an exaggerated sweeping motion toward Gohan, who was frowning severely at the shorter Saiyan.

"Brain damaged moron, you take that back and you take back what you said about Piccolo's training!" Gohan yelled hair flashing gold "besides I'd rather be a brain damaged moron than a half-pint windbag!"

"Oh look at the mouth on you brat, you'd best watch yourself boy unlike some people I haven't been slacking on my training, I can take anything you can throw at me." Vegeta snapped back, his power level steadily increasing. Gohan and Vegeta stared at one another inches from one another now, teeth bared and fists clenched.

Piccolo tried to ignore them both as they traded insults and continued to power up. Ignoring them became harder by the second as they continued to trade insults. Piccolo half wondered if Vegeta was letting himself get baited this easily or he was purposefully trying to get Gohan mad enough to power up fully. He sighed, annoyed that both Vegeta and Gohan had chosen to accompany Trunks to his weekly training session. Training, in his experience was hindered proportionally by the number of Saiyans present, one was fine, two was manageable, and three was unbearable.

Piccolo kept his eyes focused on the rubble that had been a mountain before Trunks had taken it out with a ki blast rather than dashing himself against it. He smiled as he remembered Gohan doing something similar years ago. Good, Piccolo thought, he's getting better at staying focused under pressure. He saw Trunks pick himself up out of the rubble, rather than crying, which is what he had done the first time Piccolo had decided to throw him into a mountain, he got up, dusted himself off and launched himself at Piccolo, ki flaring.

Good, Piccolo thought he's getting more determined, I can see the fire in his eyes, he wants to fight back instead of complain. Piccolo smirked and fell into a defensive position, getting ready to block the flurry of blows Trunks would surely attack him with.

Vegeta and Gohan stopped yelling and powered down to watch the small purple blur that Trunks had become as he attacked Piccolo with no complaints and uncharacteristic conviction.

"See" Gohan bragged, "a month ago Trunks would have been angry and complaining, look at him now! Getting thrown into mountains is a surprisingly great way to build character."

Vegeta only grunted in response.

Gohan was grinning watching Piccolo easily outmaneuver Trunks, remembering his own childhood training. Gohan admitted to himself he was a little jealous that Piccolo had chosen to take on another student, only a little though. One look at Piccolo showed how much he loved teaching younger warriors, even if he spent most of his time grumbling about it. Besides Gohan thought I am clearly still the favourite student.

Vegeta watched as his son and the Namek sparred, impressed at how patient Piccolo was being, holding back his power when he attacked Trunks. He managed to hit him just hard enough to hurt the boy slightly, but not enough to stop the spar or to cause any permanent damage. Vegeta had to admit his control over his ki was head and shoulders above his own, even though Piccolo could not match him in raw power. Yes, it had been a good idea to ask the Namek to train Trunks, he would have never had the patience, or the skill, to teach his son the basics without causing serious damage.

Vegeta winced as he heard Trunks say something to Piccolo, and then winced again as he saw his son fly headfirst into a plateau. Piccolo's training methods were unorthodox. But, he thought to himself as he saw his son, once again dig himself out of the rubble and fly toward the Namek, more determined than ever to best him, 'you can't argue with results'

Short Story 2-Post Buu Saga:

Drunken Master

"Namek, are you as bored as I am?" Vegeta strode over to where Piccolo was standing which happened to be under a tree on the back of the Capsule Corp lawn.

Piccolo surveyed the party that he had been dragged to commemorate the anniversary of Buu's defeat. Son was roughhousing with Trunks and Goten, Gohan was talking to Videl and her idiot father, Krillen was talking to the other humans and Dende about something inane.

"I am, yes" Piccolo replied, not moving from his shady spot, "I assume you have a solution to this?"

"You assume correctly, Namek" Vegeta smirked joining him in the shade. Piccolo glanced at him; he was always shocked when Vegeta wore civilian clothing even though he easily pass as a human he always looked just a bit out of place.

"Spar?"

"Not today, I ….uh.." Vegeta stopped and looked down "promised the woman I would go one day without training."

Piccolo smirked in response

"Shut up Namek. This should prove just as entertaining, if not more so" Vegeta left the tree and started walking toward Capsule Corps main building.

Piccolo shrugged and followed Vegeta through the building. Whatever he had planned was probably more interesting than standing alone under a tree.

Piccolo followed Vegeta into large room filled with oak cases along every wall and multiple types of glass bottles, there was a long low table with four stools and a small cabinet filled with glasses.

Vegeta walked over to one of the cases and took down a square bottle filled with a light brown liquid "Do you know what this is?"

"I believe it's some kind of alcohol?" Piccolo answered, he knew Krillen and Yaumcha would drink similar things at Bulma's parties, though he was shocked with the variety of alcohol on display in this room. Humans were peculiar, the vast majority of them couldn't figure out how to do something as simple as manipulate chi but they could find hundreds of ways to ferment grains for mood altering effects.

"You're damn right it is," Vegeta said smiling wickedly, uncorking the bottle and pouring a generous amount of whisky into two glasses on the table. "Have you ever had anything like this, Namek?"

Piccolo searched his memories as well as Kami's and came up negative "I can't say that I have."

"Perfect," Vegeta sat down at the bar picking up his glass "You see Namek, most of the planets I have visited, no matter how backwater had figured out booze at some point in their history. Though I did not see any evidence of it on your mud ball of a planet which leads me to believe your people have not developed it, and I am wondering how well you hold your liquor as a result."

"You're disappointed that my species, the one who invented the universe altering, all powerful, wish granting Dragonballs never figured to try and rot some fruit until it turned into a liquid and then try to drink it?"

"Exactly, now are you in or not?"

Piccolo sighed and sat down. He was not entirely sure how his body would react but he was competitive and he couldn't stand how smug Vegeta was being. "Fine, if I die I blame this entirely on you."

Vegeta only raised his glass in response "Bottoms up, Namek"

Piccolo sighed and raised his glass, "Here goes nothing"

- Two Hours Later -

Piccolo placed his glass down and surveyed the array of bottles that littered the bar, by his count there were at least twenty in all different shapes and sizes. Vegeta kept getting alcohols of different varieties, each tasting worse than the last. Though each bottle they drained did seem to put Vegeta in a better mood. Piccolo so far had noticed no effects, though he supposed not becoming violently ill at ingesting a foreign liquid was a positive experience.

"How does brandy sound, Namek?" Vegeta asked as he got up from his stool and went back to the cabinet. He walked confidently and did not sway. Though Piccolo was not showing any signs of being affected by drinking Vegeta was confident he would start to feel it soon. All he had to do was wait and he would see the first drunk Namek in history first-hand."

Piccolo watched as Vegeta sat down and opened the bottle, he was mildly concerned at how red Vegeta looked. Piccolo sighed as the once again picked up their glasses. This was going to be a long day.

- Two Hours Later -

Glasses littered the bar and most of the flat surfaces in the room. Piccolo was sure they had drank their way through at least a quarter of the cabinets.

Piccolo sighed to himself; things had been going fine until the last half hour or so, then Vegeta who had been acting fairly normally, had devolved into a bit of a mess.

You know Piccolo, you are my…..you're my best friend on this planet" Vegeta hiccupped resting his head on the table glass still raised in the air. "I don't…..think….I ever told you that…."

Piccolo sighed, "Yes, you've said that three times in a row, just now in fact"

"Well it's true" Vegeta said looking at Piccolo with bloodshot eyes " 's true…." He trailed off resting his head on the table and closing his eyes.

Cautiously the door to the room opened and Gohan peeked his head in, "Mr. Piccolo" he said softly "what are you and Vegeta doing, you've been missing for hours and ….oh geeze," Gohan stopped as he surveyed the state of the room. "Piccolo did you…..do this"

"I did about half of it" Piccolo said getting up off the stool smoothly "you can thank Vegeta for the other half" he said gesturing to Vegeta who was slouched over the bar still clutching his drink.

Vegeta lifted his head slightly at the mention of his name " Waz Kakarott's brat doing here" he slurred " Go away brat, you're too young for this, come back when you grow up." He finished slouching back over the table and beginning to snore softly.

Gohan looked at Piccolo and Piccolo rolled his eyes in response shaking his head.

"I guess alcohol has no biological effect on you, that's absolutely fascinating Piccolo, I wonder if it has to do with the ability for your liver to process toxins or your regenerative capabilities or if you even have a liver? Do you have a liver, I imagine you would have a similar organ but given your alien biology….. "

"Yes I am sure it's absolutely fascinating kid, but for now it is a mystery" Piccolo said cutting Gohan off before he went into a long and boring explanation of his cell structure or something.

"So what do we do…with him? Do we get Bulma?" Gohan asked gesturing to Vegeta.

"No that would just embarrass him; he'll be fine on his own. We can let him sleep this off."

"Sure thing, Mr. Piccolo that's awfully thoughtful of you" Gohan smiled heading for the door.

Piccolo only grunted in response, but before he turned to leave he conjured a blanket to fall on top of Vegeta. No there was no sense embarrassing him in front of his wife and son. Piccolo thought to himself as he walked back outside. However, he would make sure to bring up some of the more….thoughtful, things that Vegeta had said to him. He may be Vegeta's best friend, but that didn't mean he was above rubbing this into his smug face at a later date. No, he was not above embarrassing him like that.

The end.

So, yeah. There you have it folks. The (tentative)last chapter of my first fanfiction in a number of years, I actually wrote both of these before the last chapter, since I was having a lot of fun imagining smaller interactions between Piccolo and Vegeta. I was playing around with more mundane day to day interactions in my head and these were the two I liked the most. The last story is strongly influenced by a scene in the Lord of the Rings extended edition. So credit where credit is due there. For now I am done with this story, though I may add to it later if I find something I really need to write about.

Thank you to everyone who liked and followed this story and extra special thanks to everyone that reviewed it. Special thanks to Bigbluekrew for being my first review.

There are a few reviews I'd like to address directly,

LeChick, thank you for noticing I was naming everything after TV tropes. I am terrible at coming up with titles so I went there for inspiration, then spent hours looking up tropes instead of writing. Also thank you for saying I wrote the "Most Vegeta" line you've ever read. Having never written him before that means a lot!

Shadow, after thinking about your request, I honestly have to say that I can't think of anything to add to the BoG scene. Piccolo and Vegeta and Goku had a pretty complete interaction and it was funnier then anything I could have come up with.

And Onyx, I smiled so hard when I saw you reviewed. Then even harder when I read it, I'm glad you consider me one of the 'old-timers' though more of us are coming back, you, me, and now Onyx is updating, Now we just need Tanta Green, Velasa and Space-Weazel to come back and we'll have whatever the equivalent of a high school reunion is. I've always admired your writing so to hear you enjoy mine is always a treat.