Chapter Text
Tien panicked so much he was practically useless, leaving Chiaotzu in the kitchen, hovering back and forth fetching towels and water, the phone gripped in one tiny hand. Chiaotzu looked down, oval eyes full of concern, at the very pregnant Namek on his hands and knees on their kitchen floor.
“P-Piccolo? Are you alright? What else do you need?”
Chiaotzu could see Piccolo’s ears flicker in annoyance at the pitch of his voice.
“N…nothing, go…away”
Resigned to be at odds with Piccolo no matter their situation, Chiaotzu shifted to leave, gaze bouncing, desperately searching for where Tien had disappeared to. When he drifted towards the door, Piccolo shouted.
“Where are you going?!”
Chiaotzu turned, round face full of confusion, “you-you asked me to go away!”
Piccolo sobbed and Chiaotzu dipped under a flood of uncontrolled psychic anguish. Viscous pain, pooling and circling his ankles, sliding down his throat, he couldn’t breathe. Oh god, he couldn’t b—
“Chiaotzu?” Tien’s mental presence slammed into his mind, forcing Piccolo’s misery out. He turned to Tien with tears in his eyes, “I…I’m fine but Piccolo, he’s in so much pain”
“I know, it’s okay,” Tien knelt down next to Piccolo and looked around at the buckets and bowls and swathes of cloth, one hand on Piccolo’s heaving back, “do you need anything else? Shall I call an ambulance?”
“No! I don’t even need this much water, why,” Piccolo paused to cough up mucus as Chiaotzu and Tien looked on in horror, “why have you brought towels? I don’t want towels, I want pain killers”
“Uh well,” Tien mopped up the floor by Piccolo’s hands, turning to Chiaotzu, “call Goku, maybe he can get some pain meds from Bulma and teleport them here”
Piccolo groaned, leaning down on his forearms, head pressed against the many, many towels covering the floor, “I really don’t want Goku here, it’s bad enough that you’re here”
Tien winced as Piccolo’s voice thickened again, as another coughing fit overtook him and the floor was once again drenched in slime. He nodded to Chiaotzu to call Goku anyway and leaned down to look at Piccolo’s breathless, violet face.
“You know, all this slime is probably a good thing, you’re…well lubricated”
At Piccolo’s burning glance, Tien leaned up and returned to rubbing the Namek’s back and wondering what else he could do. When Goku appeared, he frowned.
“Hi! Oh…wow…” Goku blinked to remember what he’d rehearsed, “Bulma said that she didn’t have any meds, that the epi-uh, something might numb the birthing mechanism, she doesn’t know enough about your anatomy so I brought the next best thing”
When Piccolo turned, eyes on fire, Goku smiled, “Chi-chi”
“You fucking idiot!” When Goku’s face fell, Tien rushed to fix it.
“Don’t take it personally Goku, he’s in a lot of pain”
“Ha, I’m used to it, Gohan’s here too”
Tien frowned, wondering who else was en route to make Piccolo even more uncomfortable. Gohan pushed through the kitchen door, clearly looking for the reason Piccolo’s chi had rocketed, “oh my god, is the baby coming?”
Piccolo groaned, breath catching in his misery and embarrassment.
“Right, all of you move!”
Chi-chi pulled Tien to his feet with a strength that surprised him, ordering them all out of the room, “hang on, can I stay? It’s my baby too”
She looked at Piccolo, brows raised, when Piccolo nodded she let him go, “fine, you can stay, everyone else into the living room!”
Gohan huffed, half out of breath from flying so fast, but left the room with his father and Chiaotzu as instructed. Chi-chi knelt beside Piccolo and plumped the towels beneath him, unaffected by the ooze dripping from Piccolo’s chin onto her fingers.
“Right, how long has he been in labour?”
Tien blinked, looking at the clock on the wall, “about twenty minutes”
“Okay, Piccolo where’s your birth kit? You were meant to take it everywhere”
Tien jumped to fetch it, kicking himself for having forgotten about it the moment Piccolo collapsed. With him out of the room, Chi-chi encouraged the Namek to breathe, earning her a string of insults between heaves. Tien returned, ripping through the bag to pass things to Chi-chi.
“Pass me the oxygen mask? No, the mask, not that, the mask! Tenshinhan! Calm down!”
“I’m sorry, right,” he grabbed said mask and the little oxygen cylinder Bulma had given them. Chi-chi attached the tube and turned the oxygen valve, pressing it to Piccolo’s mouth, “breathe in deeply and as much as you can between…pushing”
Piccolo resisted and Chi-chi followed his face as he shook it, forcing him to inhale in the same desperation that was humiliating him. She pulled away in time for him to cough up more slime, thinned out by violet blood. Piccolo fell forward, only missing a face full of mess because Tien switched out the towel just in time. Chi-chi’s voice was stern, unbothered by the goo seeping into her summer dress, “come on Piccolo, get up”
He groaned into the towel, nearly sobbing again, “I can’t do this”
“Nonsense, you’ve endured far worse”
“No…this is worse, worse than dying”
Chi-chi sighed at Piccolo’s dramatic words and Tien’s instant sympathy, not that she didn’t understand the pain of childbirth, and birthing two Saiyan children no less, she did, it just wasn’t her job. Piccolo had Tien to attend to his whimpers, and Chi-chi to make sure this egg reached the air.
“I know it hurts, but I need you to lean back up, remember what Dende told you”
Once the egg reaches the oesophagus, the egg needs to be passed within thirty minutes at the absolute maximum, otherwise you’ll suffocate. Are you listening, Piccolo? If it hasn’t breeched after fifteen minutes, once air is restricted, call me and I’ll try and assist. Chi-chi remembered Piccolo’s unimpressed face at the news, already grit-bitter because she’d dragged him to the Lookout in the first place, looking for some proper advice.
Piccolo finally forced himself back on his hands, knees aching, eyes squeezed shut. He coughed up one more, now thin, stream of slime and Chi-chi rammed the oxygen mask on his face, her hand pressing against his stomach to see how far it had moved.
“Okay, I think this is it now, breathe as deeply as you can and don’t panic”
The Namek nodded, past the point of vitriol. Tien waited patiently, face red with concern, on his knees on the other side of him.
Abruptly, Piccolo stopped breathing and Chi-chi threw the mask down and placed a hand on his upper back.
“Okay, push! Or heave! Cough,” she remembered, “cough!”
Piccolo’s body took over the mechanism of pushing or coughing or whatever Chi-chi was shouting at him. He could feel enormous pressure pushing up into his chest, forcing him to roll his shoulders back. Tien looked nervous beside him, a little horrified, and Piccolo wished he could scream at him to leave, or to reverse this somehow, but he didn’t have the air, he was completely vulnerable to the egg, the tip of its round head now pressing on his larynx. That was good, wasn’t it? He wished he was at home, the rose-pink kitchen units swam nauseatingly in front of him.
Seconds turned into minutes and Piccolo started to panic, slamming his hand on the floor in an effort to control the feeling that he was being throttled to death. He felt Tien’s hands on him then, could hear whispers of encouragement and affection, all of it blurry as his head pounded under the pressure. He could see Chi-chi looking at her watch too, her face growing more and more pinched. Then he couldn’t see her, or rather, his vision was fading into something desaturated. Tien was talking and for once, Piccolo wished he’d shout,scream. Chi-chi moved again as Piccolo swayed, and then he was aware of arms wrapping around his midsection but Tien and Chi-chi were in front of him.
Goku’s voice, he was sure of it, murmuring, then he was being squeezed.
“Be careful!”
Tien couldn’t help his tone, barking and stressed, he was so fucking stressed.
Goku winced, “I am being careful!”
“Make sure you are Goku, we can’t risk the egg cracking,” Goku looked harried as Chi-chi warned him, slowly shifting his arms up Piccolo’s chest to try and encourage the egg to move. After a minute of Goku carefully but forcefully applying pressure to Piccolo’s torso, the egg finally shifted, forcing the Namek’s jaw to dislocate.
Piccolo seemed less dazed then and Tien wondered if he was in some new, gloriously unwelcome pain.
Goku loosened his grip and Tien shouted, “don’t let go! He might fall forwards”
“Okay, okay”
Tien placed his hands on either side of the slipper shell, ignoring the terrifying look on Piccolo’s distorted face, wide, blood-shot eyes, focusing on Chi-chi’s guidance.
“Yep, that’s it, just take it from him once it falls loose, careful of his fangs, perfect”
With a pop of some anatomy giving way, Tien rushed to bring the egg away from Piccolo’s mouth as he flopped down in exhaustion, heaving in a breath so dramatic that Goku checked his pulse. Tien laughed, relieved and excited, he was reluctant to let the egg go but he wanted to check on his partner. Chi-chi seemed to sense it, taking the egg gingerly out of his hands.
Tien rubbed Piccolo’s back, turning him gently over to lie on his back in the slosh of blood-purple towels beneath them, “you’re okay Piccolo, well done”
Goku stood, stretching his back, “congratulations guys, what a beautiful egg!”
Tien smiled, his own heart finally fluttering to a calm beat. He stared down at Piccolo, now half asleep and wheezing, before glancing at the egg in Chi-chi’s hands. He caught Gohan and Chiaotzu peeking through the door, grinning like idiots.
Piccolo took a week to recover from the birth, though if asked, he’d state plainly it had taken him minutes. They stayed at Tien’s for a couple of days before heading to Piccolo’s, since all the baby paraphernalia was there and really, Piccolo just wanted to go home. Put the baby in what Chiaotzu accurately called the house nest.
Picking up three mugs of tea, he joined Piccolo by the egg’s little nestle of colourful cushions and fabric. The Namek spent most of his days just staring at it, fussing over the temperature or stroking the shell. Piccolo had warmed up to Chiaotzu too, finally, though Tien knew it was simply so they had more eyes on the egg, more people there to announce its first crack.
“Think today’s the day?”
Piccolo grumbled, “I don’t know, I think every day is the day and it never is. Stupid human baby”
“Hey, don’t call it that”
“Sorry,” Piccolo glanced at Chiaotzu, who was arranging the gifts everyone had bombarded them with, “can you sense anything?”
“No, I still can’t sense anything”
Tien smiled, holding a cup of tea out to his mithered little friend. After all Chiaotzu’s groaning that Piccolo didn’t like him, Tien knew he was regretting wanting Piccolo’s attention now.
When the egg moved, they all tensed. A tiny, slithering crack split the shell, then another. Tien moved to touch the egg and Piccolo hissed, grabbing his arm.
“Don’t, let it break through”
“Why? You don’t still think it might be evil?”
“Ha, it might be, it’s too late to worry about that now isn’t it? But no, that’s not why”
“It’s just a baby”
“My baby will break through on its own”
Tien sighed, muttering our baby under his breath. He’d been so distracted by the arduous pregnancy and birth that he’d forgotten how difficult it might be to raise a child with Piccolo. Already they were arguing and they hadn’t even seen its face.
Another sharp crack, loud over the afternoon birds, and the egg was falling in on itself, pieces shifting in little pale green fingers. Tien forgot about their back and forth and wrapped his arm around Piccolo’s waist, he could feel the Namek trembling. Tien kissed him on the cheek, touched to see how affected his lover looked, how overcome.
Chiaotzu smiled at the two of them, coming to stand next to where they were sitting cross legged on the floor. Slowly, a small head appeared, bald as both its parents, fat pointed ears, no antennae and a still slime covered, closed third eye. Chiaotzu couldn’t help whispering.
“Ah, so cute!”
Piccolo smirked and finally gave in, reaching in the egg to scoop the baby out, claws careful and hand dripping with the shell’s purple fluid. Tien said nothing, Piccolo was many things but agreeable to being called a hypocrite wasn’t one of them.
Little feet kicking the air, their newborn didn’t evens stretch the length of Piccolo’s hand.
“I think it’s inherited my…uh, shall we use he?”
“For now, most Namekians do”
A little whine made Piccolo’s ears flicker, flushing, registering the sound.
Tien itched to hold him and slowly, almost cautiously, picked him out of Piccolo’s hand to hold him in his own. The baby filled his own palm, skin softer than anything he’d ever touched, ever known. Funny, his life of sharp edges and hard blows seemed lost in his memory now, every corner of his life suddenly rounded by this child, his child’s sun-sweet eyes. Golden and iris-less, staring into his own.
Hopping up to sit on Tien’s shoulder, Chiaotzu stared down at the little creature curiously. At his fascinating eyes.
“What are you going to call him?”
Piccolo raised a brow, their discussions on the matter had been fruitless. Tien rushed to answer before Piccolo suggested ‘Piccolo the third’, again.
“How about…Paozu”
Piccolo frowned, “like Chiaotzu?”
“No, like the mountain”
Piccolo hummed and Tien knew he wasn’t buying it, but there was a…
“Okay, I like it actually”
“Really?”
Piccolo chuffed a laugh, shaking his head, “yes, it begins with P”
Tien grinned, cooing the baby in his hand, “we should get this gunk off you, yes we should”
Piccolo plucked the baby out of Tien’s hands, clearly unable to be parted any longer, and wiped him down with a cloth before nuzzling him, clearly without realising it. Making soft sounds as his antennae traced the baby’s face. When Chiaotzu opened his mouth to say something that would light their lovely moment on fire, Tien shot him a glance. Chiaotzu slammed his mouth shut.
He passed Piccolo a small blanket to swathe the baby in and Piccolo held Paozu in his lap, all three of them staring down at him. When he squealed, shifting in his little cocoon, bright eyes curious and safe, even Piccolo couldn’t contain his joy, and it was joy. Pure unadulterated happiness. Tien laughed, he couldn’t help it.
“Welcome to our little family Paozu”