Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Very Hairy Christmas ❯ Of Chibis and Straws ( Chapter 1 )

Hey all, I'm sorry things have taken me so long to turn out, but I finally got something done in the hunkyverse-a Christmas special. This is set approximately two-almost three years after A Saiyan Homecoming, but the characters and the universe is the same. This is a two-chapter wonder…expect the next chapter before Christmas, and please, please let me know what you think!

Again, the update/discussion group for all my db/z/gt stuff is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nadialist/

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ or any recognizable characters.

Very Hairy Christmas

By Nadia Rose

Chapter 1: Of Chibis and Straws

Christmas was a wonderful time of year. Full of good food, good company, and good cheer-well, at least in most places. At Capsule Corps the food was always gourmet as long as Chichi was in charge of the kitchen, and cheer always plentiful with Krillin's ever-so-helpful comments, but the company sometimes left something to be desired. Vegeta had never been particularly amenable to the concept of Christmas, as was Piccolo, but the combined threats of three Son women and three Briefs women had been enough to make them a bit more…pliable. As it was, their idea of participating was just generally being in the same room.

Piccolo was off in one corner, meditating, while a shaggy-haired Son Barden, now approaching his eleventh birthday, sat across from him, mimicking the green man's position. The twins, Monda and Damia, were loitering in the shadows nearby, plotting on what would be the best way to hang the two ornaments they'd snagged off of Bulma's tree onto the Namek's pointy ears.

While Piccolo was keeping the older chibis occupied, the youngest ones had found their idol in the stubborn Saiyan Prince. Vegeta found himself circled by his most terrifying enemies-toddlers. The oldest, Son Juugo, was four, and the youngest, his cousin Galen, was just barely two. The most terrifying of the three, Vegeta's own granddaughter, was teaching him what Bulma meant about the 'terrible twos.'

Briefs Satin planted her tiny hands onto her hips and stared up at her grandfather from her post at his feet with a look she could have only perfected from watching her grandmother and her Aunt Bra. "C'mon, Grampa, please?"

"Yeah, Uncle Vegeta," Juugo timed in, "Tell us a story!"

Vegeta glared at the blonde boy who was very much a descendant of the hated Kakarot. "I'm not your Uncle, brat."

He was rewarded when a pair of blue eyes the exact shade as the damned metallic woman's began to water. This, however, merely enraged his spirited granddaughter. "That's not nice, Grampa! I'll tell Nana and she'll make you sleep on the couch!"

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the precocious little chibi knew exactly who ran the Briefs household.

Vegeta narrowed his eyes and stared down at his purple-haired grandchild, who thrust her chin out and glared back at him with eyes just as black as his own. Trunks looked up from the figures on the laptop perched on the coffee table before him and shook his head. His daughter was at it again. She could push his father's buttons faster than anyone besides his mother and Goku, and Kami, did she like to argue. Somehow his little imp of a daughter had managed to inherit all of his parents' combined arrogance and ego, a rather explosive combination.

Beside him, his mate burrowed her face into his sleeve to keep from laughing. It was just too funny. No matter how many times she had seen Satin wrap her grandfather around her finger, it just amused Pan no end.

It was her baby sister, the youngest chibi, who defused the situation. Only a month younger than her niece, Son Galen was a carbon copy of her mother, except the hair that crowned her head was a shade of gold that nobody had expected. The little girl wasn't as vocally adept as Satin, but then again Gohan and Videl's lifestyle was a lot less frantic than Trunks and Pan's. She shoved her chubby hand into Satin's and fixed Vegeta with her wide blue eyes. "Please, 'geta," she pleaded nicely. "We'll be good!"

Vegeta stared down into the dark blue eyes that gazed back at him without a hint of mischief in them, just pure worship. He hadn't had a chance to corrupt this one yet. After another few minutes of battle in which all of the adults watched, amused, the Saiyan Prince scowled. "Oh, all right."

Annoyances forgotten, the three chibis scrambled to sit as close to him as physically possible without being introduced to the nearest wall, which was a few kilometers closer than it had been twenty years ago. Satin settled herself down on his lap with all the grace of a queen assuming her throne, and Juugo, who was perched on Vegeta's ankles, grinned up at him. "What about that time you single-handedly saved a planet," he suggested eagerly. "Or back when you were trying to avenge the dead Saiyans against Frieza?"

Across the room, Son Gohan choked on his eggnog.

Krillin reached over and pounded him helpfully on back, seeing as the most powerful of them all was now a splendid shade of purple that could be compared to his son-in-law's hair. "You ok, Gohan?"

"I'm fine," he choked out in reply, giving the Saiyan a questioning glance. "Vegeta-save planets?"

Krillin shrugged. "Well, he can't exactly tell them he used to destroy civilizations in a single ki-blast, can he?"

Gohan eyed the Saiyan Prince, who was staring down Juugo in an effort to forestall the story as long as possible. "But that's just…a lie."

"It could be worse," Krillin commented. "He'll keep it clean-Bulma promised to sexile him and break the gravity room if he didn't. And that's after your Mom gets through with him."

The demi-saiyan shrugged, giving Vegeta a warning gaze. He wouldn't say anything yet, but he would be listening closely. His daughter was only two, and it was his job to protect her from horrible things until she was old enough to understand. He yanked his marking pen out of the unruly mess of his hair above his ear, and went back to writing out lesson plans. His little brother Goten was surrounded in a pile of his class' homework, humming holiday tunes as he marked spelling tests. It took a very special kind of person to teach second grade, and Son Goten was special indeed.

Vegeta began his tale with a slightly evil smirk and a daring glance at the Son brothers. "Well," he mused, "it all started when--"

He was broken off by a certain purple-haired two year old. "That's not how stories start, Grampa! Stories start with once upon a time!"

Vegeta glared at his granddaughter.

Satin glared back. Then she gave him another winning smile, guaranteed to melt even the sternest of hearts.

Vegeta scowled, and began again. "All right, brats. Once upon a time, there was a handsome Saiyan Prince named Vegeta who was stolen from his home by an evil alien named Frieza."

"C'mon, Vegeta!" Juugo complained. "We heard that one already! Hundreds of times. I wanna hear a new one!"

Vegeta glared at the boy. "A lot of stories start out that way, boy. Just listen. Or no story."

The blonde son of Marron and Goten's pouted for a moment in true Kakabrat fashion, but remained quiet.

Vegeta mentally chose a different story. The brat was right. They had heard that one too many times. "Well," he began in what could be termed as Vegeta-theatrics, "there was this one time that I managed to beat off evil Frieza's elite fighters, the Ginyu force."

This time, he had the attention of every chibi in the room, including Barden and Juugo's older sisters, who abandoned trying to turn Piccolo into a second Christmas tree to sit at Vegeta's feet. All of the adults immediately began wondering how twisted this was going to get.

"The worst of the dreaded Ginyu Force was the leader, Captain Ginyu," Vegeta began. "The others were nothing compared to him-even the lot of you could have beaten them. They had stupid poses, too. Worse than the Lone Saiyan and the Goldpan Girl, and even the Great Saiyateam."

There were immediately three separate protests.

"Our poses were not stupid," Gohan protested.

"I do not pose like a model!" Trunks whined.

Pan simply folded her arms across her chest. "I don't pose."

"Wow," Damia, the blonde twin, murmured in awe. "That must be really bad."

"Yeah," her dark-haired counterpart murmured. "I've seen those tapes of Uncle Gohan and Aunt Videl."

"Stupid," the two chorused together.

Vegeta ignored the comments. "But Captain Ginyu had a very special attack. He had the ability to change hosts-to put himself in another person's body. But Kakarot was headstrong and foolish," he taunted quietly, casting a glance at the son brothers, who had abandoned their work to glare at him. "He was stronger than Ginyu, but not so experienced in the ways of alien warfare. Ginyu swapped bodies with him."

Galen, ever the innocent, gasped in appropriate fright. Satin reached over from her throne to grab her Aunt's/Best friend's hand in comfort. She was no less frightened, just simply more experienced at hiding it.

"So Captain Ginyu had Kakarot's body," Vegeta continued, "leaving Kakarot stuck in a body beaten almost to death, while Ginyu himself had a very powerful Saiyan body to work with. He looked and sounded exactly like Kakarot. Gohan and Krillin were fooled, but I was not."

All of the chibis were silent for what was probably the first time that day, waiting with baited breath. Nobody ever talked about what happened before Buu to them; this was something new!

Vegeta was enjoying the attention. "It was hard, but I was forced to fight my only subject-or the body of my only subject. One punch too hard, and I would have killed the body, leaving the real Kakarot nothing to return to, stuck in his alien body forever."

"Wow," Juugo muttered, hero-worship written across his features. "Did you really beat up Grandpa?"

"I did," Vegeta answered proudly. "I had to-and there were medical facilities nearby that would be able to heal any damage I did-so I beat him to a pulp. "After a lot of fighting, I managed to get Kakarot back in his own body, and Ginyu stuck in the body of a frog, and we never heard from him again.

All the adults sat in silence as the story ended, not sure of how to respond.

Gohan was the first to find any words. "That's…not quite how I remembered it, Vegeta."

Vegeta gave him a wicked smile and a shrug. "You were very young-six, or was it seven? I was not."

Before Gohan could retort in kind, his wife strode into the room, dusting flour off her nose. "All right, boys, Yamcha just got back from the store, so it's time to come and face your doom," she announced cheerfully. "Kitchen."

Her statement was met by a chorus of groans that morphed her cheerful expression into something decidedly more forced. "Now," she repeated firmly. "Or I get my gun and Chichi's Frying Pan."

Now Videl with a gun was a common enough sight-the only time she didn't have one on her anymore was either when she was sleeping or showering, or in places like this, where a bullet was about as dangerous as a flea. But the thought of her wielding her mother-in-law's favorite torture implement was enough to make even Vegeta meek-or as meek as Vegeta could get.

In the kitchen Yamcha was leaning against the kitchen counter, watching mournfully as Bulma withdrew a handful of straws and eyed the various men and aliens gathered around her. Her gaze lingered on Oolong and Piccolo for a few moments before she added two more straws to the pile.

Oolong immediately protested. "I can't! I'm a pig! And Piccolo-he's green! Santa Clause isn't green!"

Bulma shrugged. "You're a shape-shifting pig, Oolong. You can make yourself look like Santa. And as for Piccolo, Nameks have been Kami of earth for a long time. Who's to say Santa doesn't have a Namekian counterpart?"

"But he doesn't," Piccolo rumbled.

"They don't know that," Bulma replied cheerfully. She snipped one of the straws she held in her hand shorter than the others, and after rearranging them, held out her hand. "Here you go. Now close your eyes and pick. Short straw's the winner."

"Or loser," Trunks muttered quietly.

Bulma glared. "Just for that, you get to be first." She thrust her handful of straws at him.

Trunks plucked a straw from her closed fist and waited with baited breath as the others chose. Bulma walked down the line of men, letting each draw a straw until her hand was empty. This was one part of Christmas she truly enjoyed. "All right," she chimed. "You can open your eyes and see how your luck held."

Nine pairs of eyes opened and flew to see how long the straw in their hand was. Eight relieved smiles broke out-and there was one disgusted groan. From the loser, or as Bulma and the women thought-the winner.

Son Gohan peered dismally down at the short straw that he held between two fingers. For being the Supreme Kai-elect, he had the worse luck. If he was out walking in a thunderstorm, he was the thing lightning struck. If his colleagues at the University actually succeeded in getting him to wager on something, he always lost-no matter how sure of a thing it was. Even Dende didn't know why he had such bad luck.

Gohan suspected it had something to do with the purple-skinned god who was his current sensei, but he didn't have any concrete proof. There were a lot of gods and goddesses who could meddle with a person's natural quantities of Luck, many of whom were also enthusiastic practical jokers. But still, this whole affair just reeked of Shin's influence.

Bulma smiled happily at her latest victim. "Looks like you get to be Santa this Christmas."

Gohan plastered a smile on his face, no matter how much he wanted to scream. Disrupting the bubble of Bulma and his mother's Christmas plans was a surefire way to be denied the Christmas feast they were preparing. And oh, was Gohan looking forward to the turkeys and the hams and the ribs and the pies…the thought of all that food almost made the venerable Saiyan drool. He hadn't had a Christmas feast like this since before Galen had been born.

Using the candied yams parading around his thoughts as inspiration, Gohan managed to make his smile a bit more real-or at least real enough to suit Videl, who was watching him like a hawk over by the door. He listened with only half an ear as Bulma rattled about the suit and what he had to do-most of his attention was directed at his opponents, who, now that the moment of truth was over, were beginning to sport truly evil grins.

There was a tradition among the gang at Christmastime, when they all gathered together. For the sake of the chibis, one rather unlucky male, chosen by the short straw, was given the great honor of impersonating Santa Claus on Christmas Eve for the chibis. It was also part of that same tradition to let the chibis set traps for Santa, which were generally created and executed by the losers of the straw draw. Gohan torture was a favorite pastime. Now that it was officially legitimate, the eldest demi-saiyan was, in short, doomed.

Before the reality of what they could actually do to him had sunk in, Son Gohan found himself standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a capsule containing what was sure to be an obscene costume. And there was no way to back out of this-Videl would have his demi-saiyan hide nailed to her office door, tail and all, if he ruined their daughter and grandddaughter's Christmas. He was circled by his new opponents, who were currently gauging him with gazes that even Cell would have worried about.

Without a word, they all glanced at each other. Smirks were exchanged, and then they filed out of the room in silence, intending to persuade the chibi of their choice into going along with their plan for torturing Gohan…er, capturing Santa.

And so it was. Gohan was left alone in the kitchen with the smiling faces of his Mother and Bulma, and the slightly suspicious one belonging to his wife. Bulma pointed to the capsule in his hand. "It's a bit old, belonged to your father, actually, but it should fit you just fine. You know the drill, right?"

Gohan nodded numbly.

Chichi looked up from the industrial-sized mixer she was dumping ingredients into and smiled at her son. She knew this wasn't his favorite Christmas tradition, but he'd done it before without protest. He could do it again. She beamed brightly at him and ushered him out of the kitchen, worried for the survival of tomorrow's Christmas dinner.

Gohan pocketed the capsule and wandered past his wife back into the living room, where all of the women were now staring at him like he was the juiciest cut of meat they'd ever seen. He ignored them and went back to his lesson plan, not noticing the sketches of various torture-capture-implements that Goten was working away at instead of grading his spelling tests, each one of his twins hanging off his elbows, making the ever so helpful suggestions. "You know…if you make that part bigger, it will break bones," the blonde commented.

"Yes," her sister chimed in. "Like that thing on Momma's ship does."

Gohan just did not want to know.

He made himself very busy with his lesson plans, wishing his hearing wasn't sharp enough to hear all of the muttered whispers being thrown around across the room.

Barden and Trunks were in the middle of a very technical discussion. "But aren't those too sensitive? Dust motes could set them off."

"Not if you flip these two wires…see?"

"And I'm supposed to be the smart one," Trunks was sardonic.

"I just spend more time in the labs than you do," Barden reasoned. "But really, if you cross these two wires and then augment the power source it really ought to work like that…"

"That's not strong enough," Krillin was pointing out to Yamcha. "For you and me, maybe, but not him."

"Yeah…you're right. Let's go see what Bulma thinks."

"Lunch, for the last time, you can't just shoot him!"

Oh yes, this was going to be one of the longest Christmas Eves Gohan had ever lived through. Assuming, of course, that he actually lived.

Just about the time when Gohan decided he wasn't going to go through with this rather obsolete tradition no matter what Videl threatened to do to him, his rescuer arrived. The beeping of his pager cut through the various plotting stages present in several spots all across the room. Sighing in relief, he pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and pulled it to his ear. "Hello?"

"You sound desperate," Shin's voice teased at the other end.

"You have no idea," Gohan muttered. "Did you need something? Or is this just a scheduled torture-the-apprentice session?"

"As satisfying as watching you squirm is, I actually have a purpose this time. I need you to run a message for me."

Gohan rolled his eyes. "Don't you have little peons to do that for you?"

"Yes, but none of them know exactly where the Angel's training planet is."

Gohan sighed, not bothering to test his luck too closely. "All right. I'll be there in a few minutes." He pocketed the cell phone and turned his pager off and stood up, trying very hard not to melt in relief. "I need to go run an errand for Shin," he informed his wife. "I'll be back in time for the…festivities tonight."

"You'd better be," was her only reply.

Gohan shrugged and glanced over at his son, who was dragging Trunks off in the direction of the labs, while Juugo was listening to Marron and Juuhachi's conversation with awe. He only hoped someone voted those two out-they could be vicious. A pair of hands tugged at his pants, and he looked down to find his youngest daughter standing at his toes, craning her head back to try to see his face.

He smiled and squatted down so he was much closer to her eye level. "What's the matter, Angel girl?"

Galen ignored his special nickname for her in favor of giving him the saddest eyes she could manage. "Going away?" She questioned him hesitantly, those big blue orbs so similar to his mate's brimming with tears.

He grimaced, realizing that lately every time he left her he usually left for days on end. Between his job as Kai-elect and Videl's rotating schedule, Galen had spent a great deal of her young life in the care of her grandmother, Bulma, or Hercule. He nodded solemnly. "I have to go run an errand," he explained gently, "but I'll be back to see Santa tonight."

"Promise?" She pleaded, biting her lip.

"I promise," he assured, swiping her up in one arm and dancing his fingers across what he knew was a ticklish spot on her ribs. Her giggles danced around them, and she struggled half-heartedly in his arms, wrapping her gold-tinted tail around his wrist in an effort to make him stop. She smiled breathlessly up at him, and he grinned down at her. "There's that smile." He dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I'll be back tonight. Now why don't you go to kitchen and see what your Grandma is up to? I'm sure she's got something in there you can snack on, okay?"

"Ok Daddy. Seeya later!" She scrambled out of his arms and scurried off to the kitchen as fast as her legs would carry her.

Videl watched her go, then lifted an eyebrow at her mate. "Remember what you just said later," she informed, before pulling his head down to give him a goodbye kiss. "I'll make sure things don't get too bad here," she whispered softly in his ear.

With a jaunty wink goodbye, Gohan snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving the mass chaos of Capsule Corps behind, heading for the planet of the Kaioshins. It was time to see what Shin was really up to-and hopefully get some hints on how to survive the night.