Before The Blood Runs Dry (Kabe)

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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"No, it didn't fall out of my head. Just felt like a non-answer, you know? It's hard to believe my cool warmaster uncle has never gotten caught up in his feelings before." Kabe replied, rolling his eyes as his uncle indulged him with a more clear answer. He did laugh though, when Vocado said he didn't really the time for love to be in his deck of cards. "Unc, I'm literally an intergalactic criminal with a bounty so high it's only topped by some shitheel named Yangcong, and I have a husband. You've got time, if you want it."

The last question did sort of make him think for a moment. He was as open as books came, comfortable chattering on about all the dirty and dramatic things in a person's life. But he'd learnt from Zhalla that there were lines with family, which was something he didn't really have the chance to learn before.

He just shrugged. "I don't know; I don't exactly need details. Whatever you at that very gay cyborg got up to, or any girls out and about can stay between you and them. I just don't like thinking about the idea of you being alone forever. I only really asked 'cause it's really... new for me, to be in that position. You know? Like I'm a messy sort of dude, it's really weird to be so in love with my husband. I hope you get that one day."

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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"Well, shit. I hadn't thought about that, guess I'm getting cancelled now. Chock that on my long, long list of crimes."

He laughed, at Vocado's jokes and comments, but the truth behind the laugh was he could tell it was another deflection. Something about all this was something his uncle wanted to cover up, but he'd already pushed and he didn't want to pry while they were trying to fix what relationship they had with eachother and cause his uncle to shut down again. Or maybe even make him not want to be around anymore, again. He just wanted him to stay.

So he relaxed further into the medical fluid, dunking his head for a moment and shaking off his hair as he re-emerged, feeling bruises on his cheeks itch as they patched themselves up. He still hated the sticky way his pants soaked in this liquid. "But alright, alright fine. No love talk. For now," he said, easing off the pedal as he leaned his head lazily on the edge of the tank. "how long you think we'll be out here? I should probably... head back to earth soon. Then home, to namek. Haven't seen my husband in a little while. Hope they're alright."

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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Kabe scoffed, laughing at the implication that he and the earth were tight.

"I mean I wouldn't exactly say I have ties on earth. I'll help you rock that fascist government's shit when the time comes... just like, Bee is there. He's been hanging out with some little plant girl he thinks is the coolest person to ever live so I left them while I went out to space for a bit. Just gotta pick him up."

He shrugged at the idea he was getting the hang of things. Didn't really feel like it, even if he did have a few last minute options to wrangle the thing inside him now. And the idea that he could surpass Super Saiyan? He doubted it. That was more something he was sure Zhalla could do. She always was so far ahead of him. But instead of getting lost in that, he moved on ot the question about his check ins on Namek.

"I mean, the crew for one. It's not just my husband I've left there on Namek, it's sort of home for me. Zhalla, too. Nero. Their kid, who I still didn't actually get the chance to meet yet. Probably check in on some people Bee likes too, like that pancake kid he's always on about. Why? You thinking of giving Namek another visit soon? Or just worried about your nephew and his rowdy crowd?"

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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Kabe shot Vocado a look when his words were that he wasn't planning to come and invade Namek 'any time soon', a look meant to remind him of the warning he'd given him the first time he'd brought up his plan to invade the earth and the wars he was brewing. But he didn't press it, he just nodded. He understand what Vocado meant, too, in the words he chose. Out of place.

Kabe felt that about his home, as well. He was mazoku now. He had a home, his ship had settled down into something of a makeshift village all interred in iron and steel, and he had a family he was starting there... but he still didn't feel like he deserved the peace the planet was giving him.

But Nero. Hmm. He still had complicated feelings about his cousin-almost-in-law. "Nero, he's... saiyan, yeah. Mostly. But he's Namekian, too. Not as in he hatched from an egg with green skin, just that it's his home, he's one of them. He's Guru for that reason, too. The planet picked him, I think? Bit of a weird way to elect your spiritual and lawmaking leader but it's not really any different than how some other planets do it."

He sighed. He liked this conversation, this time talking to his uncle. But he knew his uncle was probably prying too not just from interest, but for intel. He was warmaster. Kabe respected him for that, even if devotion to a crown never jelled with him. Soon they'd be back to smacking eachother around.

"He's tough. Zhalla is too. Strong enough to throw Lottus around I don't doubt." Kabe added, as he counted the time in his head before they'd be back to blows and he'd be struggling with the beast that was currently quietly chewing in the back of his mind. He'd said it with a tone of reverance; he respected Zhalla and Nero, they were up on a pedestal for him that he thought he'd never reach. But there was a hint of warning in there, too.

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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He understood what his uncle meant about Lottus. He had died, more than once. The beast inside of Kabe, that awful thing, seemed to see that as some mark that he was the at the top of the food chain. A predator who couldn't be felled, a hunter with so much determination that he'd clawed his way out of hell to keep doing it... but Kabe didn't really know how he felt about it. If death could be reversed... why shouldn't it? Why didn't it? Why the fuck were his moms still dead?

But he could tell from what Vocado said, that the idea seemed to really not sit right with him. Lottus being back when he should have been rotting. And then, he said something else, and he stood up shaking and Kabe spat out a response right away.

"Don't fucking say that." he shouted, and then he took a breath despite how desperately upset his those four words had seemed.

"Don't worry I won't dig up your corpse or anything," Kabe added, his tone trying to reel back from the tension he'd just introduced. "But don't say that shit. You make it sound like you've got a death wish! If you die, you do realize I'm going to have to kill whoever's responsible right? So just keep that in mind next time you're putting your life on the line for something stupid."

There wasn't humor in what Kabe was saying. His chest was tight, and the idea of losing another loved one, even just mentioned offhandedly, seemed to be really terrifying to grapple with.

BEFORE THE BLOOD RUNS DRY

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He bit his tongue and fought the urge to tell Vocado he needed to relax, that him getting all intense was a perfectly reasonable reaction to what his uncle had said, but he knew it was pointless and that really he was too much to handle with all his stupid anxious feelings. As the liquid spilled out, he climbed up out of the machine and flopped down onto the dirt, shaking the medical goo out of his hair like a wet dog, before Vocado tussled fingers through the damp shag of black atop his head.

He smirked at being called a rat, and nodded at the idea that Lottus should be afraid of the two of them as one combined force. Yeah. Together they were a force to be reckoned with. He remembered the brutalizing smackdown the two of them had given Fukushu the day that Lottus became a Super Saiyan. The day the world changed to a place where planets could pop like balloons and being blonde haired and blue eyed was not just some sign you were a bit of a rich bimbo type.

"Oh. Strategy? You wanna formally train me, Warmaster?" Kabe replied, liking the idea but too stubborn to ever accept that he needed something other than instinct to rely on. "Pretty sure we knock heads together pretty good as-is."

With a stubborn growl as he lunged before even letting rip the golden form and it's parasitic pilot, Kabe charged Vocado and was changed, the wheel taken over for another round between hunters. He could feel in his bones they would be at this for longer than just one more day. It'd take more than a week to beat some control into the beast they were up against.