Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Orange Star High School ❯ Little Town of Bethlehem ( Chapter 7 )

I forgot to mention last chapter, but the bands: MxPx and New Found Glory are REAL bands. NFG and MxPx both do covers (which are excellent and sometimes hilarious) as well as many of their own songs. If you've got time and the hard drive space, go check them out. (Especially "Teenage Politics" by MxPx and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by New Found Glory)

**Looks frazzled** Wow… three chapters in relatively three days… **blinks tiredly** I'm going to take a SHORT break from this fic. I need to regroup my thoughts and all. I also have summer school work that is demanding to be sent in. That and I'm going to start a new fic in a different fandom. (Invader Zim, for those interested. Fans of the show will have noticed a few bits that I nicked from the show. Crazy Taco, for instance…)

Chapter Seven: Little Town of Bethlehem

Zarbon and Dodoria as well as some of their fellow thug friends had just exited with their wares. His stepfather gave an aggrieved sigh as he slid off his jacket and sat down on the couch. Vegeta peered up cautiously from the pot where he was boiling an egg for his Christmas dinner.

"Good job, you did a few days ago. I didn't think you'd have the balls, being a fag and all." He stepfather said after a moment. He motioned him to join him on the couch, which Vegeta did with hesitation after turning off the stove.

"Those dickweeds…" His stepfather grumbled. "You can't leave them alone for an instant, or they'll start humping something. The last thing they need to be humping is Chichi Mau."

His stepfather put an arm around him then, a gesture of affection, something Vegeta had never experienced from his stepfather. Warmth burst from some portion of his body, an alien feeling in such close proximity to his stepfather who had never touched him but to hit him before.

"Chichi Mau's Uncle is the Chief of Police, anyone who fucks with her guarantees trouble for me." His stepfather squeezed his shoulder with affection. "Stopping them probably saved me from a cold jail cell."

It was like he was in the Twilight Zone. His stepfather wasn't supposed to compliment him, to thank him. He was supposed to hate him, to smack him around and call him awful names.

He couldn't say he was upset with the change, however.

"Do you have homework?" His stepfather grunted, pulling away from him slightly.

"No, I - I finished already…"

His stepfather smiled at him, an honest, pleasant smile. It startled Vegeta more than it should have, considering how weird this night seemed to be.

"Good, let's go out to eat tonight," His stepfather suggested.

"That'd be great."

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

It was the first Christmas, and the grief counselor had said it would probably be the hardest. Of course it would be, seeing as both his mother and his brother were gone. Toma may have eased some of the gap that the two others had normally filled, but he would trade Toma for an evening with Radditz and his mother.

He missed the cookies his mother would bake on Christmas Eve. He could practically smell them… Except it wasn't real… even though it was Christmas Eve.

He could hear Toma cooking the turkey in the kitchen… and he seemed to be having trouble judging from how loudly he was cursing.

Goku got up off the floor from his position in front of the Christmas tree with a sigh.

"How y'doin?" He asked, peeking his head into the kitchen. He gagged at the plume of smoke that filled his nostrils.

"Fuckin' chicken!" Toma shouted in the direction of the oven as he waved the smoke away from his face with a dishrag.

"I thought it was a turkey?"

"Whatever it was, its charcoal now." Toma snarled as he opened the window to let out the smoke.

Toma sighed as he opened the oven and carefully pulled out the charred turkey. The skin looked like it was pulled taut over the bones.

"How'd you get it like **that**?"

"I honestly don't know… but how do you feel about going out to eat tonight? Your dad called just a minute ago, apparently he's working late again." Toma didn't look him in the eye as he said the last part.

His father had been working overtime quite a lot recently… he hardly ever saw him anymore. He supposed that it was all part of the grieving process… but his father wasn't the only one suffering.

"Sure, let's go." Goku shrugged half-heartedly.

Toma looked at him with sympathy and pity, which only made Goku feel worse.

"Let's go to Hog Heaven, they'll be open still."

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Yamucha boredly flipped through the endless channels of Christmas specials. He'd either seen them a million times over, or the same movies were airing on other channels. He hated Christmas.

His birthday had passed two days, and all his presents had gotten lumped up into his Hanukah gifts. Christmas was always such a let down when you celebrated something other than Christianity. Nobody hyped up for Hanukah. It was even worse when your birthday was two days before Christmas.

There was a knock at the door, and as he was about to get up, it swung open. In stepped a man dressed in a Santa Claus costume, with some blonde in a skimpy elf outfit.

"Ho, ho, ho. Happy Hanukah." Said the unmistakable voice of his father. He scowled, and didn't stand up to greet his father.

"Hanukah was almost three weeks ago." He said, before returning his attention to the television screen.

His mother smacked him on the back of the head from her position on the couch beside him.

"Yolanda!" She called upstairs, where his sister was playing. "Someone's here to see you!"

The rapid thumps of his sister's footsteps could be heard before she reached the top of the staircase.

"Santa!" She cried eagerly, and then ran down the steps. Some of her classmates had been giving her a hard time, Yamucha knew, because she didn't celebrate Christmas. He'd suffered the same thing in his Elementary school.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she let loose another shriek of "Daddy!"

His father hugged his sister, and Yamucha sighed, and pulled himself out of his chair. His father was at least attempting to be sociable, and he supposed he should do the same.

"Here are your Christmas presents!" His father said proudly, pulling two large boxes out of a sack he had slung across his shoulder.

"We hope you like them!" Maria giggled.

Yolanda eagerly tore into hers, and revealed a doll, which she anxiously freed from its cardboard packaging. He was a bit more restrained as he opened his package. The wrapping paper gave way to reveal a clothing box, which he opened.

Inside was a baseball jersey for the Eastern City Samurai. He was diehard Western City Dragons fan, which his father should have known. He wanted to scream. Where had the father of nine months ago gone? The one who'd cheered for him at every game, and taken him out for a congratulatory milkshake even if he'd lost the game?

"You like it?" Maria bubbled, and Yamucha did not look up from the jersey, otherwise he'd have sent Maria a look that would have fried her unnaturally tan skin.

She'd been the one to steal his father… working whatever bizarre feminine magic she had stored between her thighs. He hated her.

"It's perfect," He said with a false smile.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

There were so many people… her chest was tight at the sight of them. They mingled and chatted without noticing her peering down from the balcony of the staircase. She was wearing a nice red velvet dress, which her aunt, who had designed and made it herself, was anxious to show off.

She couldn't go down the stairs though. There were so many police officers there that were her Uncle's co-workers and friends that one of them would spot her, and know what she'd been doing. They'd throw her out in the snow, banish her from the family, and she would be alone…

"Chichi, why don't you show off your new dress?" Her aunt called. She gripped the railing in apprehension.

"I-I-don't feel well." She called back faintly.

Her aunt frowned and jogged up the stairs; an amazing feat in the stilettos she was wearing. She held a hand to her head, and Chichi reached up absently with a tissue she'd taken to carrying around to wipe her runny nose.

"You are pretty warm, I thought your flu had gone away." Her aunt pouted. "Do you feel really bad?"

Chichi nodded desperately, and attempted to look more pathetic.

"Alright, go in and rest, I hope your better by tomorrow, your father's coming over for Christmas dinner."

Chichi did not have to fake her blanch. Her father was coming…

He would notice… as dim as he sometimes appeared, he'd notice immediately how much she'd changed… she'd lost so much weight (the smack had taken the urge to eat away from her) and he'd notice and be so ashamed…

She rushed to the bathroom, her fear and paranoia causing her to vomit up her stomach acids.

Why had she gotten herself into this mess?

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

If Celipa were alive, she'd be cooking Christmas dinner. She'd be wearing her special `Christmas apron' made of stiff green cotton with a felt Christmas tree on the chest that Radditz had made her in kindergarten. She'd be humming with the Christmas songs playing on the radio, her hips swaying slightly as she retrieved the ham from the oven.

Radditz would be in front of the tree, desperately shaking each of his presents, trying to figure out what could possibly be contained within their wrapped depths. Most of the times he was right, he had a very sharp set of ears. He and Celipa had been triple packaging his presents since he was eight-years-old because of it.

Goku would be making final adjustments to the Christmas stockings, making sure each one was free of holes and the packing popcorn they were normally kept in between holidays. He'd be dressed in his pajamas already, he'd have been wearing them since six-o-clock in the evening, as he anxiously awaited for Santa to come, even though he was too old for it, and he knew there really was no Santa Claus.

He'd be in the bedroom, making Christmas calls to friends, neighbors and family, his stomach growling from the smell of his wife's cooking…

He took another sip of coffee and roused himself from his dreamland. He had work to do.

None of it that couldn't wait, his conscience reminded him, before he told it, firmly, to shut the hell up.

Christmases just weren't Christmases without the whole family together… and he knew he'd cry if he came home to a decorated house, but no Celipa in the kitchen and no Radditz under the tree. He couldn't deal with crying.

It was all incredibly unfair to Goku, he realized. The two of them had been growing more distant of late, and he knew soon he would loose the boy totally to college and the real world.

But he couldn't go to a single one of his games without thinking about Radditz. He couldn't sit down to dinner in their now too empty house without seeing Celipa scowling at the pile of dirty dishes. He did the dishes when Celipa cooked… he always rather enjoyed it.

Now he couldn't even look at a damn dish without thinking about a conversation they'd had over the kitchen counter. Whether it was about bills, what trouble Radditz had gotten into, Goku's grades, or what they were going to do when they got old and the kids were gone…

He hated the holidays.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

For one time in the year the Briefs had a quiet meal at the scarcely used dining room table. There was no talk of business on this night, and the food was prepared from scratch instead of out of a box. It was a very special night.

"So, how are things going with your boyfriend, Bulma?" Her mother asked, as she cut off a slice of perfectly tender roast beef.

"Yamucha?" Bulma shrugged. "He's fine. He took me out to see a movie last week," She shrugged. They really hadn't paid attention to the movie; they'd chosen a bad movie purposely for the chance to make out.

She must have blushed because her father chuckled knowingly.

"And what was the movie about, Bulma?" He goaded, after he finished slurping down fettuccine noodles like a small child.

"It was about a girl whose parents tease her far too much, and she went crazy at the dinner table on Christmas Eve." She said flippantly, tossing her hair back.

Both her parents chuckled.

They very liberal, and Bulma realized that she was very blessed that they were so. The `sex talk' she'd received at twelve from her mother had been very short and to the point: `Whenever your ready, go for it, just make sure you either love him or he's really cute'.

Her father had no objections to any of the boys she'd ever brought home, sensing that they were flings on her part rather than serious relationships. He had confidence in her sensibility and reason, and trusted her completely.

She enjoyed it when they sat together like this… it was so rare. She continued to eat her beef stroganoff while enjoying the simple pleasure of being a family.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Apparently many people had had the same idea as his stepfather, and had come out to eat tonight. It was mostly people who had no family to go to tonight, and they all seemed to have convened at the MacMeaties burger joint.

His stepfather had ordered a large greasy MacMeaties Maximo burger, with a large order of fries. He'd ordered a MacMeaties salad, and they'd both gone to a booth to sit.

They ate quietly; they didn't have much to talk about after all. His stepfather dealt in the drug world, and he struggled through an uppity prep school, they didn't have much in common.

"Your mother liked MacMeaties salads too." Frieza muttered between bites of his burger.

"Oh?" He asked, hoping his stepfather would drop it. He didn't like talking about his mother.

"Yeah, she'd come down here after a binge and eat like five of them." His stepfather said with a snort of laughter. "She'd come back home with bits of carrots in her hair sometimes."

Vegeta gave a half-hearted chuckle at that.

His stepfather then looked outside for a moment, before leaving the booth. Vegeta let out a sigh. Business… it had to be. He picked at his salad. What he wouldn't give to be normal for one night of the year…

"Here." He looked up and was surprised to see his stepfather had reappeared, with a package in his hands. "I know it doesn't make up for much, but I thought that this'd be a start."

Vegeta looked at the box curiously before carefully unwrapping it. Clearing away the hastily taped newspaper revealed a polished oak box. His heart thudded with excitement. He flicked the latch open to reveal a case of pastels, watercolors, charcoals, and tiny tubes of acrylics. A quick check revealed no smashed tagging device --- meaning that his stepfather had actually bothered to **buy** something for him.

"I saw how you liked to draw so much, and, well, I spotted it in a store ---" His stepfather shrugged uncomfortably. "I hope you like it." He mumbled.

"I love it," He whispered, stroking the smooth case.