Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Birth of a Prince ❯ Welcome Home? ( Chapter 12 )

Part 12 Welcome Home?

Bulma returned to Capsule Corp from yet another screaming session with Chichi. She had finally managed to convince the hysterical woman to give the boys a chance with their tails, and not to do anything rash. Bulma still wasn't comfortable with it though. Chichi had never been the most reasonable person in the world, the tails appearing seemed to have shoved her closer to the edge. Lost in her thoughts, she pushed the kitchen door open, intent on getting something cold to drink when she was suddenly assaulted by a short, purple blur, which was shrieking "MAMA MAMA!!!" She managed to get her feet back under her and looked around the kitchen. It seemed to be full of furry, waving tails. She shook her head, dazedly and picked up her eldest son. A long, lavender length wound itself around her arm as Trunks threw his arms around her neck and squeezed hard.

"Welcome back," she managed to choke out. Goku pulled his head out of the fridge and waved cheerily at her, winding his tail around his waist as he greeted his longtime friend.

"When did you all get back," she asked, disengaging Trunks' tail from her arm, and his arms from around her neck.

"Oh, just a few minutes ago," replied Goku, grinning in typical Son fashion.

"Mama, lookit my tail," said Trunks, pulling impatiently on Bulma's shirt to get her attention. He waved his tail in front of her face. "Look, it matches my hair," he giggled.

Bulma gave her eldest son a quick squeeze. "It is a wonderful tail, Trunks," she told her delighted son.

"Hey, I gots one too," came a chibi voice from somewhere around her knees. She looked down at Trunks best friend, whose dark brown tail was twitching almost…nervously. Bulma set Trunks down, and knelt on the kitchen floor in front of Goten.

"Hai Goten, your tail looks just like your father's handsome tail."

Goten smiled at her. She hugged the boy tightly, trying not to think of what his mother's reaction to his tail would be.

She was interrupted from her disturbing thoughts by an ear-splitting screech, followed by a chittering chirp, and a short, derisive laugh. She stood up, turned around to face Vegeta and a thoroughly overexcited Sage. Sage was out of the carry-pouch for a change, and was sitting balanced in the crook of one of Vegeta's arms, tail enclosing a large portion of his father's bicep. He grinned and chirped at her again, holding out his hands to her. She crossed the space between them, running her fingers through her son's hair and down his soft cheeks, smiling as Sage grabbed one of her hands and…

"BULMA, NO," shouted the two Saiyjins.

But it was too late. Bulma yelled in shock and pain as she tried to disengage her hand from Sage's mouth. Blood was dripping freely between them, running down her arm, down Sage's chin and pooling all too quickly on the floor. It couldn't have been more than a couple of heartbeats before Vegeta had pried Sage's jaws off of his mother's hand and was admonishing the scowling chibi.

As Bulma ran to the sink, a single question managed to make it out of her mouth as she ran her bitten hand under the water, "Since when does Sage have teeth?"

A short while later, her hand bathed and bandaged, she sent Goten and Trunks to play in Trunks' room and the three adults plus Sage held a conference in the living room.

"There are a couple of things that need to be addressed RIGHT now, before we get to the subject of tails," she said firmly, holding her hand up as Vegeta made to interrupt her.

"First things first. I am NOT nursing Sage ANYMORE if he is going to try for my blood every time he gets near my flesh." She glared at Vegeta as though this were his fault entirely. "Trunks never did that," she said accusingly to him. "Why does Sage?"

Vegeta sighed. "I admit it caught me by surprise too," he told the woman, holding up his own hand which was marked repeatedly with holes and a few gashes presumably made by tiny teeth. "His teeth are coming in on schedule; you'll recall I told you about the teeth with Trunks, Sage has almost four teeth now. But the blood-thirst is way ahead of schedule with him."

Bulma blinked. "Blood-thirst? I don't recall any blood-thirst with Trunks."

"That's because Trunks' blood-thirst showed up when it was supposed to, and I happened to be watching him when it happened." His eyes narrowed as he looked at Bulma. "I could have sworn I told you about it."

"I can tell you right now that you didn't mister," Bulma hissed back at him. "You want to explain to me what is going on?"

"Very well," replied Vegeta calmly. "Saiyjin parent's share their blood with their children, usually after the sixth month of life when the child may or may not be satisfied with nursing alone, but are not yet ready for solid food. Blood is simply the next step in feeding Saiyjin babies." He shrugged. "You should know by now woman, that a Saiyjin's protein requirements are massively different than yours. Blood helps babies grow. But as I said, Sage is way too young for blood. I have never heard of a baby so young having the thirst."

"He's not even two months old yet Vegeta, and yet you say this occurs after six months?"

Vegeta nodded.

Bulma turned to Goku. "Did your boys ever do anything like this? I don't remember Chichi ever mentioning it."

Goku frowned, remembering. "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, they both did, but never when Chichi was around. It just seemed natural to me, so I let them do it. I never mentioned it to Chichi." He frowned again. "I remember once she said that Gohan had bitten her, but that she had cured him of that pretty quickly. That's probably why she never mentioned it. Gohan never tried for her blood again, and when Goten was old enough I just assumed that he would do the same as Gohan. He did, and like I said Bulma, I never mentioned it to Chichi." His gaze forced her eyes to meet his. "For obvious reasons," he said his voice heavy with meaning.

Bulma sat back and tried to process what she had just learned. After a few minutes, she gave up, and looked at her baby, who at the moment was attempting to rise up on all fours. He kept collapsing, with small grunts, but kept trying to get back up. He paused, briefly in between tries, and then a small blue-black tail wound around the leg of the coffee table. Using his tail as extra leverage and balance, he tried again to get his arms and legs under him. He succeeded, momentarily, and then fell back to the floor, and proceeded to throw an appalling tantrum. Surprising her, Goku picked Sage up and comforted him. Bulma winced, certain that Sage's outburst would intensify, but to her astonishment, the chibi clutched at Goku's shirt, tail winding around the tall Saiyjin's arm, as he quieted.

Bulma glanced at Vegeta, expecting to see something other than calm acceptance on the prince's countenance, but Vegeta looked completely at ease.

This just gets weirder and weirder, thought Bulma to herself.

"Um, so what do we do," she asked, remembering the original topic of conversation. "About Sage's biting, I mean."

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. "What would you have me do, woman? Punish him? Deprive him of something his instincts tell him he needs?"

"Damnit, Vegeta, don't make me the bad parent here," Bulma yelled. "You said yourself that he is too young for this blood-thirst thing, do you plan on letting him bleed you whenever he wants, whether or not he is ready? And as I said, I am NOT nursing that…him until we figure out what to do." She crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

Vegeta scowled, his temper fast getting the better of his restraint. "What were you going to call our child?" he asked, his voice gravely from repressing a growl.

Bulma instinctively moved away from him. If she was honest with herself, she had been about to call her own son "that little blood thirsty monster," but she couldn't very well tell Vegeta that. She didn't need to. Her silence she knew was speaking volumes to the Saiyjin prince, as he stood up, towering over her as she shrank into the couch.

"I don't believe it will be any of your concern," he snarled at her. "If you don't feel you can nurse your child I am sure he can get along without it. As for the biting, I was going to tell you that I don't think he NEEDS the blood yet. I THINK he just likes the taste. But since you are going to refuse to nurse him, he may start on blood in the near future."

Bulma started to say something, but Vegeta cut her off. "Don't bother woman. Until you can accept your son for what he is, namely half Saiyjin, then you are no better than that bitch Kakkarott married." He gestured to Goku to stand up and hand him his child. The younger man complied, his expression worried.

"Pending your acceptance of the situation, stay away from my son." Vegeta's voice, venom laced, held a note of concrete finality to it, as he stormed out of the room.

Bulma looked at Goku, confusion, fear and horrible sadness warred in her eyes.

Goku sighed, and hugged his friend tightly. "I'll go try and talk to him, ne?" he said softly to her.

To be continued…..