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On a summer evening in West City, the heiress to the Capsule Corporation decides to host a barbeque for her friends and family. These gatherings aren’t uncommon, much to her antisocial husband’s dismay, but he’s more or less gotten used to them. Tonight, however, despite the delicious smells of grilled meat in the air and the overall cheery atmosphere, Vegeta is fuming.
It's been less than a week since his longtime rival hired that Universe 6 assassin to end his life. Less than a week since he reluctantly agreed not to tell the man’s wife of what had happened. And while a not-insignificant part of him understands the reason for the man’s actions, it’s very much overshadowed by the blinding rage and jealousy he feels whenever he mulls it over for too long.
Eventually the prince has to excuse himself from the main party area just so he isn’t overcome by the temptation to smash Kakarot’s stupid face into the nearest pile of hot charcoal.
He stalks off to go and lean against a tree not too far from the patio area, arms crossed, glaring daggers into the back of his rival’s— if he can even call him that anymore— head. Unfortunately, the spot he chose wasn’t nearly isolated enough, as another antisocial member of the group had had a similar idea.
“Do you mind not grinding your teeth so loud,” Piccolo growls. The Namekian is sat against the side of the tree, arms and legs crossed in his customary pose. He’d meant to get some peace and quiet after some particularly tedious small talk had thoroughly exhausted his social battery, only to find his peace now rudely interrupted by the pissed-off Saiyan prince.
Said prince pays him no mind, snarling to himself under his breath, “That blasted fool, stringing everyone along in his little games…didn’t even have the decency to be honest about his intentions, instead just making deals behind everyone’s backs and hoping no one would find out…pah!”
He shakes his head in disgust.
“What does Kakarot even see when he looks at me?” He spits out, bitterly. “A plaything, easily toyed with and just as easily cast aside?”
“At least he looks at you,” Piccolo mutters.
Vegeta, who had just opened his mouth to resume his rant, halts, the first syllable caught in his throat as he processes what’s just been said. It’s an innocuous enough sentence, but something about the way the Namek had said it…there was something else there, some hidden facet of the other fighter that had made itself known to him for but a brief moment.
“What was that?”
The Namekian had realized his mistake at the exact same moment the Saiyan had. He attempts to brush it off.
“Surely you didn’t think you were the only one in this group to have clashed with Son at some time or another.” He scoffs. “I’m sure Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, and Yamcha could tell you some stories about that.” He inclines his head toward them.
The prince’s eyes narrow. A deflection and a dismissal in the same breath, without so much as faltering. I’m almost impressed, Namek. Rather than going straight for the kill, he decides to advance more cautiously, so as to bait the other into making another slip-up he can exploit.
“Oh, I can believe it.” Vegeta sneers. “If the Kakarot of your time was even a fraction as insufferable as he is now, he must have made enemies everywhere he went.”
Piccolo snickers a little. “Heh. I can assure you he’s changed very little in that regard. He’s still a flighty, immature, selfish fool who trusts too easily for his own good.”
There— Vegeta hears it again, that note of odd fondness that creeps into the other’s tone, tinged with something like longing. But for what?
The sound of Piccolo’s voice pulls Vegeta from his thoughts.
“You shouldn’t worry about the whole Hit thing.” He says, in his usual brusque manner. “Son’s an idiot, but not such an idiot that he’d start underestimating you now. He’ll come back to you in no time.”
The mere mention of the hitman’s name sends Vegeta’s mood swiftly spiraling as he remembers the entire reason he’d found himself in this conversation in the first place.
“Tch.” His expression sours, and he says his next words without really thinking, “Clearly that wasn’t true for you, was it, Namek?”
The relatively good-natured atmosphere turns icy. In the ensuing moments of silence, the prince feels a brief flicker of something like regret; he should have waited longer instead of snapping at the other and ending the conversation prematurely.
Piccolo slowly stands from his sitting position, but instead of walking off like Vegeta expected him to, he turns his head to glare at the Saiyan prince.
“You really don’t see it, do you?” He retorts, eyes flashing with sudden anger. “The way he looks at you?”
“What are you going on about now?” Vegeta says, suddenly feeling defensive.
A cruel smile slowly breaks out across the Namekian’s face, exposing his fangs. “You two really deserve each other, don’t you? You’re just as big an idiot as he is.”
He leans a bit closer. It takes no little amount of will for Vegeta not to back away, but even if he did, there’s nowhere to go, with the tree trunk hard against his back. At the very least, he manages not to tense up.
“Hit is a temporary thrill, a fleeting novelty.” Piccolo says, with quiet menace. “But you, he’s invested in— as a fighter, and as something more. You excite him.”
He leans back, and says, scornfully and coldly: “If you can’t see that, then you deserve for him to leave you behind.”
With that, Piccolo turns and walks away.
Vegeta gawks, eyes wide. His mind fumbles, searching for something to say, but no words come.
He can’t just— how dare— what did he mean, something more—
A part of him itches to seize the man and demand that he explain what he meant by his words. But he’d already promised Bulma he wouldn’t make a scene. All he can do is watch, fuming, as the other’s white cape disappears into the crowd.
Later that same night, the Saiyan prince seeks the Namekian out.
He finds him in the desert, hovering over a small oasis, locked in deep meditation. The pool of water beneath him is still and undisturbed as a pane of glass, reflecting the light of the twice-restored moon above.
Vegeta lands on the edge of the water and addresses the other. “Namekian.”
The other does not show the slightest sign of having heard him.
“I want a spar.”
That, at least, gets Piccolo’s attention. His eyes slide open, and he looks down at Vegeta with clear disdain. “Really.”
“I’m not done.” Vegeta crosses his arms. “I want you to fight as though you mean to kill me.”
Piccolo unfolds from his lotus position, smoothly and without wasted movement. When he looks at Vegeta, it’s with a hard, calculating glint he’s never seen before— or at least, not directed at him.
“Only if you do the same.” He says.
Vegeta smiles, wolfishly. “I never intended on doing otherwise.”
Four days later, Vegeta is lying on one of Capsule Corp’s many expansive, well-tended-to lawns, in the shade of a large tree.
He’s still perspiring lightly from his workout— he hadn’t been able to turn the gravity as high as he usually did due to his recent injuries, and God forms had been out of the question, but he’d still stubbornly pushed himself as far as he possibly could before he’d been kicked out and ordered to rest. A hand comes up to idly brush against the still-healing claw marks lashed across his throat.
Piccolo lands on the grass beside him with a soft rustle and a gracefulness belying one who had spent the last few days regenerating most of his body. He settles beside the other in the shade, automatically settling into his usual lotus position.
“It’s been a while since someone wanted to fight me like that,” he muses, by way of greeting.
“You’re welcome. Although, I could have done without the tongue-lashing from Earth’s little god.”
Piccolo chuckles. “He was very disappointed. He forgets, sometimes, that I’m no better than the rest of you when it comes to self-preservation.”
(It was true, Vegeta thinks. For all his discipline and his rational mind, the Namekian had spent much of his time on Earth living, training, and fighting alongside those of Saiyan lineage. They were bound to rub off on him eventually.
Deep down, there is a small part of the prince that regards him as one of their own— a member of the strange little kingdom he’d built.
Not that he’d tell the other that. It went without saying.)
“Not that I intend to do anything to remind him of that anytime soon,” the Namekian continues.
The prince side-eyes him from where he’s still laying in the grass, “Then you’re not entirely opposed to doing this again in the future?”
The other smirks. “Not if you aren’t.”
The conversation meanders from that point, the two good-naturedly reminiscing on their “spar”, all the close calls with death they’d put each other through. It was as though their conversation and subsequent argument at the party had never happened. Eventually, however, the conversation inevitable finds itself on the topic of their shared problem.
“So, Son’s up training with Whis on Beerus’ world again?”
(Piccolo already knows the answer; he’d sensed the man’s energy vanish from the planet not long after the party.)
Vegeta gives a grunt of affirmation.
“You’re not going to join him?”
The prince exhales through his nose before answering. “…No. I think I’d like to have some distance from him for a little while. Time enough to get my mind together.”
A pause, and then the Namekian says, a bit apologetically, “What I said, that night at the party—”
Vegeta cuts him off. “Don’t apologize. You were speaking the truth. I haven’t…I haven’t failed to notice the way Kakarot looks at me. How he reaches out. I just can’t bring myself to take that hand.”
“Why?”
One of the Saiyan’s hands idly toys with the strands of grass beneath it. “He’s changed me.” He says, eventually. “Utterly. Irreparably. I don’t know who— what I’d be if I’d never met him.” A blade of grass snaps.
Piccolo asks, in a low voice, “And that bothers you?”
“It terrifies me. He was already a part of me, part of my very bones, even before the damn fusion, and now— now it’s even more so. And the very worst part of it is, I think that he knows.”
His eyes bore steadily above, where the sunlight filters through the leaves. “Taking his hand, accepting his feelings— it would be handing over the last and only part of me that’s not already his. And I can’t bear that.”
A beat, and then his companion says, quietly, “I’m sure that’s not how he sees it.”
“I know.” Vegeta says, with finality. “But it’s how I see it.”
A long pause, in which neither of the two speaks.
“You probably think I’m a fool.”
A rustle of fabric as the Namekian gives a small shrug. “Would I have made the same choice? I don’t know.”
He turns his head to look down into Vegeta’s eyes, and in that usually-impassive gaze the prince sees something that looks like compassion. “But I do understand your feelings.”
Somehow, that makes Vegeta feel relieved.
(And Piccolo does understand it, that need to create some sense of distance for the sake of feeling some semblance of control, however fabricated.
After all, he’s never been able to call Son by anything but his family name, that sliver of un-needed formality giving himself something to brace himself against the rush of emotions that threatens to overwhelm him whenever he sees the other’s face.
If Son asked him, then, maybe, he’d call him something else.)
They spend several more minutes in companiable silence before Vegeta finally brings himself to ask the question.
“How long have you loved him?”
For a moment, he wonders if he’s made a terrible mistake. Then Piccolo sighs.
“I don’t know.” He sounds tired, resigned. After our first fight, when he spared my life, I suppose. But I didn’t know what it was back then.”
Vegeta remains silent, giving the other time to find his words.
“The way he looked at me when we fought, like I was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen…in hindsight, that was the catalyst,” he admits. The Namekian’s voice is full of undisguised longing, far from his usual gruff tones. “It was the first time I can remember knowing I was wanted. Treasured.”
He barks out a laugh. “I was a fool.”
“That makes two of us.” Vegeta says.
The two companions, one sitting, one lying down, remain beneath the eaves for some time, watching the sun begin to sink on the horizon. The soft breeze is a balm against their still-recovering bodies, the sounds of West City no more than a faint background hum.
““If you must feel resentment, then curse your own fate, as I do.”” Piccolo mutters.
“What?”
“Something I said to Gohan once. It feels applicable.”
A pause, and then Vegeta snorts. “I’d much rather curse Kakarot.”
Piccolo shoots him a look of disbelief, then throws back his head and full-on laughs for the first time in all the years Vegeta’s known him.