DEVILRY
Obsidian Blade

They hadn't moved from the living room, despite the cartoon hero's asinine antics distending into a three-episode waste of an hour and a half. Thankfully having tuned out all but the most high-pitched of voices from the television, Vegeta stared unseeing through the screen. He had detected a pattern in the previous day's discourse but couldn't yet identify it in solid terms. Slowly he looked over at his wife, who was nestled comfortably against his shoulder looking as dazed as he had. Probably thinking over some new schematic.

'What are you driving at?' he said.

Her blue eyes shifted to look at him. 'Huh?'

Vegeta registered Trunks shooting them a warning glare in his peripheral vision, but pointedly ignored it.

'Envy. Gluttony. Not typical words. What are you driving at?'

'Oh, I noticed a pattern.' She shrugged. 'Figured I'd encourage it.' When he continued to stare at her, she continued, counting on her fingers. 'You like that I'm proud. That I'm angry. Then I made the mistake of adding envy to the list; we made up in the usual way, lust…' She ignored their son's gagging noises at the word. 'And then there you were gorging yourself as usual. Gluttony. That's five of the seven cardinal sins.'

'Cardinal sins,' Vegeta echoed.

'Oh, you know. The seven deadly sins.' She flashed him a brilliant grin. 'The things that send you straight down to hell.'

'The other ones are totally to do with ruining some of the best broadcasting ever,' Trunks grumbled from the floor.

'Actually,' said Bulma, leaning forward to peer down at the boy, 'one of them is laziness and the other is greed. Greed as in hey, look who's hogging the box again.'

'Not like you want to watch anything,' said Trunks, plonking his chin on his arms and scowling vehemently.

'How do you know?' his mother demanded. 'Did you ask?'

'I don't need to! If you wanted to watch stuff you'd actually get up in the morning for it, instead of lying around in bed until, like, noon every Sunday.'

'And maybe the thing I want to watch will be extra good because I don't usually see it, did that occur to you, buster?'

The things that would send him straight down to hell. Pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, greed and sloth – the woman would have to cover that last one for him, realistically. Absently, Vegeta watched his wife and son bicker over the television remote. There was that threat of a new, compromising precedent hanging over his head again. He had just spent nearly a day conversing with Bulma, after all, irrespective of his escape to the gravity room, and now he was thinking emotional things.

He scoffed inwardly as Bulma launched herself at the remote, only for Trunks to snag it at super speed and reappear balancing on the back of the far sofa.

'C'mon, Mom, gotta be faster than that,' he goaded.

New precedent. What a load of bullshit. He had been a passionate person all his life: passionate about defeating Frieza, about outdoing Kakarot, about beating down his own limits. There was nothing new about that, even if that intensity was now directed at a family rather than a foe. And as for the other thought rattling around inside his head, the thought that he would happily risk another visit to hell for his proud, temperamental woman and his greedy, bratty son, that was only a reiteration of the past. He had died in their defence against Majin Buu, after all.

'You think that's fair? Do you?'

Somehow Trunks had ended up on the ceiling and Bulma teetered on the mantelpiece. She shook her fist at the boy, who stuck out his tongue in response.

'Well guess what's also fair! Me grounding you for being a little brat, that's what! Give me that remote!'

Vegeta sat back, crossing his arms over his chest, and watched them both. He supposed this covered greed, drinking in the presence of these two idiots he was fortunate enough to share a life with. The corners of his mouth edged upward as Bulma launched herself from the mantelpiece, caught their son by the ankle and collapsed with him onto the far sofa, where her tickling fingers easily won the remote.

'How about the shopping channel?' she crowed, standing up on the cushions and taking aim at Trunks' cartoons.

As the boy let out a wailing noooo, Vegeta rose fluidly from his seat, reached over his wife's shoulder and deftly swiped the controls from her hands. Her head whipped around, brows low and mouth twisted in mock-anger at his intervention.

'You can't support Spongebob,' she started, only to stop, eyes wide with surprise, as he lowered his head and kissed her.

'Eww.' Trunks made gagging noises in the back of his throat. 'Dad, that's gross.'

He reached for the remote, left dangling from Vegeta's fingertips, but the elder saiyan hoisted it swiftly out of the way.

'Just what do you think you're doing?'

'You're not exactly using it,' Trunks replied, crossing his arms.

Vegeta smirked at the familiar gesture, before switching off the television altogether and crushing the controller in his hands. Trunks' face crumpled in horror.

'None of your bawling, boy,' he said gruffly. He glanced at Bulma, taking in the demanding arch of her brows and the residual flush in her cheeks, then back to his son. 'We're going to the goddamn park.'

Never mind hell. Never mind the ever-growing threat of going soft. He was Vegeta, Prince of Saiyans, and nothing could ever keep him from his treasured deadly sins.

End.

Ta-da, I can finish things. Thank you to everyone who clicked this fic and read it through to its conclusion. Double triple quadruple thank you to everyone dropped me a review or six, you are all The Best without exception.