Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Vegeta's Recipe For Meatballs ❯ Meatballs ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don't own any dbz characters!

AN: This is my first attempt at a humour fic. The idea just came to me, out of the blue. I'm going to write it down, since you should always trust the blue. (Not including the political blue! And, for the sake of clarity, I'm talking European blue here. I've recently been reminded of the fact that Americans got their political colours all mixed up. Go figure.)

ANYWAY, hope you'll find it amusing, but I do warn you: you might also find it...just a little bit sick.

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Title: Vegeta's Recipe for Meatballs

"Waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaah!"

The baby was crying her head off. She had started wailing in the middle of the night and was still going strong. Vegeta had a sudden impulse to join her. Wouldn't that be nice, just forgetting his frickin' worthless duties and frickin' worthless obligations and be grossly outrageous for a while?

"Vegeta!!" Bulma walked towards him, or rather, she was staggering, the screaming baby flailing wildly in her arms. "Vegeta!!" Perhaps she was trying to out scream the infant screaming champion. "Vegeta!!"

"What is it, woman?!"

"I'm tiiiired!!" Great, now she was wailing as well.

She truly looked the part. She had dark circles under her eyes and her clothes were in a disarray, the skirt well above her waist, the cleavage of her tight sweater misused in a way that the designer had probably never imagined: One of her breasts was hanging out, apparently from an aborted attempt to feed the baby, and thick drops of milk were slowly dribbling down her front.

"It's not my fault the baby can't shut up."

"She's sick too! And would you stop calling her `the baby'?!"

She was sick too? Great. The boy had come down with it a few days ago. Some disgusting human disease. Measles.

"Waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaah waaaaaaaah!"

His children. His pale, blue-eyed, spotty little children. Measles. He kind of hoped it was a temporary disfigurement, not that it would make that much of a difference.

"Vegeta! I can't do everything around here! I'm tired! And hungry! No way am I cooking today! I want you to make dinner, do you hear meeeeeee..." Screech.

He blinked sluggishly, and for one instant the woman and the baby transformed in front of his eyes. Her neck became long and saggy, her face stretched onto a large, cruel beak. Her bald head swayed restlessly over feather clad shoulders. Mama vulture was holding baby vulture, the smaller beak opening again and again in the ear-piercing wail.

"Waaaaaaah waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaah!"

"Vegeta, do you hear me?!"

"What?" He shook his head, and blue hair framed her pale face once again.

Bulma screamed at the top of her lungs, "I'M NOT YOUR SERVANT WOMAN!!"

"Alright, alright! I'll make the frickin' dinner!"

"Good, I'll be waiting!" She marched past him, hoisting the screaming baby up on her shoulder.

"I sure could use a servant right now, though," he muttered as he moved towards the kitchen. For some reason he had to walk with his hands outstretched to the sides, not to bounce into various walls on the way.

He opened the large refrigerator and fumbled his hands across the crammed shelves. "What to make, what to make?" There. He pulled out a two-kilo package of ground beef. Joy. He could make meatballs; he had done that once before.

Ripping away the plastic foil, he brought his head down and sniffed at the contents.

"Hello, Vegeta!" The cheerful voice echoed off the walls of the kitchen. He looked up, and found himself staring into to wide, orange-clad chest of Kakarott.

"Kakarott! What are you doing here?" He squinted up at the grinning face, his mind slowly changing track to take in the new situation.

"I've decided to leave my family, Vegeta. Chichi and Gohan and Goten can take care of themselves from now on."

"What?! What are you talking about?"

"I want to be with you." Kakarott's voice became a soft rumble. "Let's leave all this behind and go somewhere else, just you and me."

"What's the matter with you? If you're joking, it's not f-" He fell silent when a large hand gently cupped his cheek.

"It's not a joke." Kakarott moved even closer, his voice a hot whisper against Vegeta's ear. "This is not the proper lives for Saiyan warriors. There are battles to be fought, planets to conquer..." Kakarott's lips lightly grazed his neck. "Excitement."

"Kakarott..." And then they were kissing, lips moving together almost frantically. Vegeta threaded his fingers into Kakarott's thick hair, held into the back of his head as if to keep him in place. He opened his mouth and accepted the other man's tongue, eagerly tasting it with his own. Kakarott was...was...

Not there. Vegeta was alone in the room, alone with the humming sound from the refrigerator. He was holding the box with both hands, pressing his face into the soft, red mass of ground beef.

"Ptwih!" He spat out a mouthful of raw meat on the floor.

This was NOT his day.

Vegeta pulled out a large bowl made of stainless steel from one of the cabinets, hardly noticing the loud rattle as several other bowls fell all around his feet. He dropped the meat inside, and listlessly put it on the table.

What now? Oh yeah, eggs. He broke three eggs into the bowl, spiced it generously with salt and pepper and put the oven on 225 degrees Celsius. What else? He poured in a large splash of milk and sprinkled a handful of oatmeal flakes into the mix. Something was missing. Onions, that was it. He brought a small net bag filled with onions to the table and started to peel and chop the aforementioned vegetable.

Chop, chop, chop. Over and over, the edge of the knife struck the table.

Vegeta closed his eyes, opened them again.

"Sniffle."

That had NOT been him making that sound.

"Sniffle."

He did NOT make that sound again.

He attacked another onion with the knife, his whole face scrunched up in an expression of utmost misery. Large tears were streaming down his cheeks, dripping into the growing pile of chopped onions.

Having finished the whole bag, he put the knife aside and wiped the tears away with quick, forceful movements. He lifted the pieces of onion into the bowl. Using a wooden spoon he worked at the ingredients until they had turned into an even paste.

Making the actual meatballs proved to be a challenge in itself, but finally he had formed a myriad of round little balls and placed them in neat rows on an oven-sized baking pan.

Cooking, cooking, cooking. He sat on a chair by the table and watched the meatballs putter inside the hot oven. Slowly, very slowly indeed, they turned golden brown.

"Mmm, it smells great," Bulma said, entering the kitchen. She looked much less tired, apparently having dumped the baby somewhere behind. "Is dinner ready?"

Vegeta motioned towards the oven.

"But...?" Bulma looked around the kitchen, one eyebrow lifted in confusion. Then she started to laugh. "You big dufus! You're supposed to cook some pasta and make a salad as well."

"Ah," Vegeta murmured. "I knew something wasn't right."

Shooting Vegeta a sharp glance, Bulma suddenly walked up to him and placed a hand on his forehead. "You're hot. No...you're burning up!"

"I am?" He looked up at her with eyes that wouldn't quite focus.

With abrupt resolution she pulled his shirt up, exposing his upper body all the way to his chest. "You have it too!"

Not understanding, he looked down at his stomach. It was covered with tiny, red spots.

Measles.

Frickin' wonderful.