The Biggest Gift of All

Loud wasn’t something Nero had ever really been a stranger to, but he could always hear past it all in the end. Where many of the medical assistant Namekians in the scenario were panicking and juggling between helping plus not somehow pissing Zhalla off, Nero took to everything calmly, for as excited as he was in his own right to be a father he had to keep it together. It was this exact calm approach that ensured the storm passed.

While Nero was tending to Zhalla, his mother Zukha had been busy looking after the shelter kids and sorting out decoration for Nero and Zhalla’s new house since they hadn’t managed to set much up so far. To Zukha’s delight, the shelter kids were just as enthusiastic with helping out as she had expected them to be. Some were even eager to help with preparing food, which was a big time saver! Now that everything was cooking or cooling depending on the kind of food it was, Zukha sorted out the table for everyone— being very particular about the seats for Nero, Zhalla, and a special new little guy.

Soon enough, there was a knock at the door, opened promptly and politely by one of the older shelter children as the new parents Nero and Zhalla had arrived! At Zhalla’s side, Nero also wore his own sort of holiday outfit. Quite the festive ensemble that carried the energy of a gingerbread man, candy canes and hot chocolate. It was also, hilariously enough, one of maybe at most three outfits he had that featured any sort of shirt. The merry man was tippity tappity dancing around as he entered. “Guess who has their dad joke liseeeeenccceee~?” Nero gleefully twirled, revealing a strange stone in his hand that lit up at his command with a mystical hologram-like image of what looked to be a birth certificate. “Thhhhiiss guyyyyyyy. Ayyyyy.”

“Little man certainly knows the schmoves when he hears them doesn’t he?” Nero leaned over to his son and gave the baby a bright smile after hearing him giggle at the sounds of his father dancing. “Not that I’m surprised.”

Nero puffed out his chest proudly at the comments that were made about the birth certificate and his capability to crack jokes. “You’re right, it wasn’t going to stop me.” Harper translated Max’s sign language, and Nero grinned, a prankster sort of grin in a sense. “Hohoho, much much stronger.” Or worse, depending on who you asked.

Leaving the introduction of the little guy to Zhalla, Nero conjured some sparkling lights around her and Daucus to draw attention to them— not that they needed the help, it was just a bit of fun. Nero heard Daucus squeak for him before he saw the boy reach, and instantaneously moved to hold his son since that was what he wanted. “Done testing your ears or something, huh? Or did you wanna show off your amazing eyes?” Nero asked Daucus in a gentle yet goofy and playful way. Zhalla pointed Zukha out as well, and Daucus was very curious about her already— as if he somehow knew how important she was?

Zukha was, for once, speechless. She was in awe as she slowly approached. She reached out and softly caressed Daucus’ head as she began to cry tears of happiness as her smile widened with glee. She even had to back up a bit before she started dancing and cheering. “WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Nero, and even Daucus weren’t caught off guard by the noise, though the latter was slightly more confused about it, and even tried to do it himself— it just came out as something between a wolf pup howling and a baby squealing happily. “Haha, yo thats crazy, just recently born and he already almost knows the howl.”

Daucus babbled happily at the attention he was being given, first and foremost by his parents but also by these people that made him feel even more safe— in some way he knew they were important even if he had no way to articulate or understand exactly why.

“A goner? Ohoho, no, I don’t think so, Noki.” Nero said smugly. “It just means he will have a great teacher in humor overall.” Any of his children would have an impressively sharp wit if he had anything to say about it, and he would indeed have a lot to say! Speaking of having a lot to say, Daucus’ attempt at howling was met with joy and curiosity which just caused the little baby to try again. “Ahhh, guiltyyyyy as charged. It’s because of me that he has that Garou about him~”

Since Nero now held Daucus (and thereby the attention of those in the house) Zhalla would be free to scurry away alongside little Uba. Daucus reached out to Zukha again and blew a bubble with his baby dribble, much to his sudden amusement. Zukha reached out to hold him anyway, she was no stranger to the antics of a newborn. “Look at hiⁱi_iiⁱⁱiim, his tiny little hands and his big ol’ eyes. I’m surprised he doesn’t have teeth yet since he’s at least partially Garouan.” “Nah, I think he’ll take a bit longer than I did— probably still quicker than most though.”

Just then, Zhalla had returned with a large sack of gifts with Uba trying his best to keep the end of it off of the ground. Nero smirked. “We can’t forget about the time of year now, can we?” He was of course totally in on this from the start. Max had a special request, and it was a very kind-hearted one. “The birthday boys are the bosses, it’s fine by me.” Nero gestured for Daucus and Zukha gently handed him back over to his father who sat down on the floor close to Max. “I will sit with him, okay?” Nero spoke in a way that Max could easily read his lips, but he also conjured two etheral arms to sign the same thing— he wasn’t as fast as Zhalla or the others but he was decent at it by this point. It would have been a bit easier with his actual hands too, but those were occupied with cradling his newborn son.

Daucus kept trying to do a little howl up until he suddenly burped and started laughing about burping, only to then try and burp again because he found it funny. “Pffhehehe, he’s not even a few days old and he already finds burping funny. Truly amazing.” What baby didn’t find burping funny?

“Yeah. My teeth came when I was... I think a month old, maybe less. See, Saiyan bone structure and all that is already robust, that includes the jaw and teeth. My birth mother’s people, the Garouans, they’re all born with their teeth, or they come out within a day or so.” Harper also gave his input as a Namekian, to which Nero nodded. “Exactly.” Namekians for the most part hatched with their teeth grown, especially if they were the kind of hatchling that matured rapidly.

Patiently waiting for everyone to gather around, Nero swayed from side to side a little to keep Daucus’ attention with a little dance. It didn’t take long though, and Max hurried over with the present that he was given. Nero drew Daucus’ focus to the present, making sure to hold him back while Max gave a demonstration.

Zukha stood beside Zhalla, noticing her reaction and chose to place a hand on her shoulder, giving the new mother a soft yet strong smile. “It has been an honor to see the two of you come this far, Zhalla.” Her attention then mostly turned to the two boys opening the first gift.

Daucus blinked his big ol’ baby eyes a few times before grabbing at one end of the wrapping paper, tearing off an impressive portion of it with his unchecked baby strength, while also doing no damage to the present inside. That wasn’t what Max had taught him to tear into, after all! The little guy started giggling before shredding the paper that was in his hand, thus leaving a bit of a mess of tiny confetti-level pieces of paper on the floor... As well as in his father’s hair.

Whoops.

“What’s got you so nervous Noki? You’ve already got your teeth.” Or at the very least, all of his baby teeth. “It’ll be fine, we know what to do so that we can help Daucus.” There was nothing to worry about, both Zhalla and Nero had experience in some way with raising children or being their older siblings.

Daucus babbled happily even after having torn that chunk of paper to shreds. Even Nero couldn’t help but find it pretty funny. Alongside Zhalla picking up the torn pieces of paper, Nero casually used his telekinesis to collect and gather more of it into a floating ball off to the side that would be easy for Zhalla to take and put into the enchanted recycling bin whenever she wanted. “Thank you, Sunshine.”

Max was successful in drawing Daucus’ attention though since he seemingly understood that Max was who he was supposed to be learning from here. Daucus looked at the box from his point of view, and it didn’t have much paper left on it as far as he could tell! He looked increasingly upset until Nero pointed out that Daucus was only looking at one side of it and the baby immediately smiled again. Reaching out for the wrapping paper, Daucus once again tore off more than one might have expected from a newborn and then tried to scrunch it into a ball as best as he could, but since he was a baby without finer control of his grip he didn’t fare too well in that endeavour and mostly just crinkled the paper a lot. That said, he did seem pretty happy with what he had managed to do.

Since Max offered the much more professionally scrunched ball of wrapping paper he had made, Daucus was more than happy to try and play with it. The little guy scrunched it in his grip and tried to throw it between his hands, but he mostly ended up dropping it in Nero’s lap only to pick it up again. Eventually Daucus looked a little frustrated that he wasn’t catching it like Max did so his baby brow furrowed in a really silly way as he stared at the paper with all of his infant might until it just... Floated in mid air for a second before dropping to the ground once Daucus stopped straining his expression so hard. “Yoooo, baby level telekinesis!! Good stuff champ!” Nero hugged Daucus close and the baby giggled happily, entirely unaware of the significance of what he just did.