"Hey dad!" Steven called.
Greg looked up from organizing some boxes in the storage unit as he heard his son's approach. "Hey, Stuball!'" he called as the boy rounded the corner, "How's it going? I hear Goku and the others have been keeping you busy with your martial arts training."
"Yeah! They said I'm finally ready to start learning how to control spirit energy!" Steven explained excitedly, "Soon I'll be able to fire Ki blasts and maybe get to learn one of their special moves, like the Galic Gun or the Kamehameha wave!"
A look of concern flashed over Greg's face, before his smile reappeared. "That's great Steven!" he explained, "So with all that training, do you think you're strong enough to help your old man clear this thing out?"
"Yeah! I even brought someone along to help!" Steven said.
Greg looked confused until he heard a gruff voice say, "Oh great...Steven, this is why I asked who you wanted me to help."
"Oh no…" Greg sighed as he turned to see the prince of Saiyans glaring at him. "Oh...Hey, Vegeta...How's it been?" he offered.
"Cold, dreary, and annoyingly loud seeing as a few of you humans find it necessary to blow your hands off several days prior to when the planet actually finishes another circle around the sun," he quipped, folding his arms.
Greg scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, I guess some people just get really into the festivities," he reasoned.
"Hn," the Saiyan simply replied. There was a few minutes of silence before Steven spoke up. "Well, how about we get started? The storage room isn't going to clean itself!" he said tugging on Vegeta's hand. The Saiyan didn't budge.
"On second thought, Steven, I'm going to take a rain check on this," Vegeta said turning to walk away, "There's probably some monster somewhere that needs fighting and I don't need to waste my time in a mildew encrusted storage facility."
Greg sighed in relief but Steven frowned. "Aw, Come on Vegeta, it'll be fun!" he called as the Saiyan started walking away. He picked up a cardboard box with the word burn written on the side. "Please? If you help, you can burn whatever we decide to throw away!" he coaxed.
The saiyan stopped for a moment before sighing. He then turned around and started walking back towards them. "Alright then. I'll help," he agreed.
Steven cheered in excitement while Greg inwardly groaned. This was going to be a long day.
…..
"This place is a disaster," Vegeta complained as he picked up another stack of boxes, "I swear, it's worse than the wretched pig stye Kakarot calls a room, and I know for a fact that there's still clothing in there that's been left unwashed since he was eight."
"Well, it's not like I've been here for a while, and I don't exactly have another place to put this stuff," Greg reasoned.
"Still doesn't explain why you have half of this junk…" Vegeta continued, "What even is this thing?!" Greg turned to see him holding up a daruma doll with one eye painted in.
"Oh, I think that was a wedding gift from one of Goku's friends actually…" he explained, "I think it was-"
"So are you going to keep it?" the prince asked nonchalantly, cutting him off.
"Of course I'm going to keep it! It was a thoughtful gift!" Greg stated, slightly offended.
"Yeah, I'm sure it holds some great memories," Steven added from where he was sorting through boxes. Vegeta shrugged and threw the doll over his shoulder.
….
"So do you want to sell or toss this old speaker," Vegeta asked as he held up a cobweb covered, decades old speaker, "I know you have better equipment now and it's probably rotted out so there's no point in keeping it."
"Well I don't know," Greg said, "I actually might want to hang onto it...ya know, for sentimental reasons. It was one of my first speakers after all." Vegeta raised an eyebrow at the man as he set the speaker back on a box.
"Uh oh," Steven announced. Greg and Vegeta turned to where Steven was crouched over looking at something.
"What is it? Did you step on a nail or something?" Greg asked in concern.
"No," Steven said, "But I think your photo of mom broke…" he turned around to show them the picture in the broken frame.
"Darn...Well, at least the picture itself is fine. I guess we'll have to get a new frame for it," Greg sighed.
"You shouldn't have left something so important out where it could get damaged in the first place," Vegeta chastised, "Honestly, Universe. Take better care of your things."
"Hey, accidents happen!" Steven intervened, "It's alright."
Vegeta hummed a response before turning and walking back over to the other side of the storage shed. Greg and Steven went back to sorting when they heard a loud crash. They both turned to see the broken speaker on the ground with Vegeta turned away from it, picking through a box. "Woops," he said, not even turning around. Steven frowned and gave his dad a worried look. Greg just brushed it off with a forced smile.
…..
"Hey Dad, What are these VHSes for?" Steven asked, holding one up.
"Huh?" he said, "Oh I remember those! These were some old cheesey horror flicks Vidalia and I used to watch together. Vegeta used to even watch them with us at times!"
"Really?" Steven asked.
"Yeah, he liked to make fun of them and point out all the flaws. It was a little annoying at first but it became fun later on, and so we rented out old B-grade films to make fun of together for a little while," Greg explained.
"That's so cool!" Steven said, "I can't believe you guys used to hang out like that!"
"Yeah well…" Greg started, scratching the back of his head.
"That was a long time ago," Vegeta said, snatching the tapes and throwing them in the burn box. He then returned to what he was doing.
"Hey! Don't do that!" Steven scolded the Saiyan, picking the tapes out of the box, "Those are perfectly good tapes! What's wrong with you today? You're more irritable and rude than usual!" Vegeta didn't respond, but paused in his sifting to look over his shoulder at the boy briefly.
Greg sighed. "Listen, Steven," he said pulling a wallet out of his pocket, "It's getting late. How about you go and get us a few pizzas, alright?" "We'll be fine for a few minutes," he assured. Steven hesitated before taking the wallet and heading out the door. Greg waited a few moments before addressing Vegeta. "Look," he said, tone more serious, "I know you're never going to forgive me, but could you at least pretend not to hate my guts when Steven's around?"
Vegeta turned to him. "Sure, if I can figure out a way to pretend Rose is still around," he he said sarcastically.
"Look I'm sorry, ok!" he shouted, "I didn't know she was going to die! Do you think I would have agreed if I'd known?" "You're not the only one who cared about her," he continued.
"Of course I wasn't! What, do you think I'm some kind of blind idiot?" Vegeta snapped, "You may have loved her, but you didn't depend on her like we did. Rose wasn't just a friend to us. She was the closest thing to family any of us had! Heck, she was practically Kakarot and Piccolo's mother! She took care of us. She made us better, and we looked up to her for it." "Do you know what my life was like before she came around?" he continued his tirade, "It was worse than hell! In the entire universe there were only two people I could trust, both of which are most likely dead by now! Everyone else either feared me or were waiting for the moment I was deemed useless so they could get their hands on me. Meanwhile, you had a comfortable home for most of your life and anything you could have asked for!"
"Look I get it!" Greg retorted, "I get that Rose was important to you in ways I can't understand. But she meant a lot to me too."
"She wasn't just important to me, she was important to the planet!" he snapped, "She was this planet's defender. She protected it from greater threats than you could ever imagine, and now this place is wide open again for attack. The gems already have plans for the Earth again. Who's to say they aren't on their way here right now? Even if we can fight them off once, who's going to stop them when Kakarot and the rest of us are gone? She was the only one who could stand for the planet when all else fails and now we don't even have that!"
There was a long silence between the two. "...This isn't really about Rose and I anymore, is it?" Greg stated.
There was another long pause. The Saiyan's mouth opened and closed as he tried to argue back. He made a few more frustrated attempts before he finally gave up and sighed, leaning against a stack of boxes. "No…" he admitted, "It's just easier to blame it on you." "The truth is, even Rose wouldn't be able to solve our problem at this point. The gems are determined on coming to earth. Even if they don't know who we are yet, they'll find out soon enough. And what the gems know, Frieza finds out fairly quickly," he explained, "I've been kidding myself for years in thinking that training here on Earth would be enough to defeat him. It would take a literal legend to defeat him and we've barely surpassed Rose's power level now."
"So, what? Are you planning on going into space to train?" Greg asked, "Is that why you tried to build that space ship?"
Vegeta shook his head. "It was, but I forgot that I don't know how many more planets Frieza owns now," Vegeta explained, "Going out beyond the reaches of the solar system could get us all killed even faster If I'm spotted by a member of the Frieza Force. I'm trapped, both figuratively and literally!"
Greg nodded in understanding. "I assume we're not telling Steven about this," Greg said.
"He doesn't need this information on his mind if there's nothing we can do about it," Vegeta clarified, "We don't need him worrying his head off. Not only is it unnecessary, but his powers become unstable when he's emotionally compromised. We don't need that right now."
"Right…" Greg said, "...But it's perfectly ok to let me know about this?"
"Just because I don't like you, doesn't mean I don't trust you," he noted before smirking evilly, "Besides, seeing you lose sleep over this brings me a little peace."
"You're horrible, you know that?" Greg stated bluntly, to which the Saiyan shrugged.
"Tell me something I don't know," he responded, "I'll pay you back for the pizza, however. There's plenty of gold in the treasure room. I'll have Steven stuff a couple doubloons in your sell box so you can pawn it off to someone. I still don't get why you humans like it so much. It's useless and soft."
"It's pretty and rare?" Greg offered with a shrug.
"It's useless," Vegeta insisted as he turned back to cleaning out the storage unit. Greg sighed in relief as he felt the tension fully dissipate. It had been a long time since he could actually feel peace in a room when Vegeta was there. When Steven returned later, he was happy to find that the two were working together, or at least not arguing anymore. "I'm glad to see you guys getting along, I was actually worried you'd hurt each other if I left you alone," Steven said as they watched the fireworks.
Vegeta scoffed. "I might hurt him, but you'd have to be crazy to think he could lay a hand on me," he said.
"So do you want to watch one of those movies for old times sake?" Steven suggested.
"No," Vegeta stated bluntly, "I burned those movies. They were terrible."
"What?! But we took those out of the burn box! You can't just burn things without permission," Steven cried.
"Actually, your dad let me," he stated.
Steven looked to his father in surprise. "He's right. They were pretty bad," he explained with a smile and a shrug, "I'm not gonna miss them."
Oh look! More filler! Sorry. I meant to get this particular chapter out last month, but I kept having to rewrite it. I'm still not entirely satisfied with it, but I hope you guys enjoy it anyways.