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Lemo doesn’t really know much about Saiyan biology.
Once upon a time, back when he was still on what had been Cold's, and then Frieza’s main ship, he’d thought of studying up some of the strongest fighters the empire had subjugated, just in case it could ever come in handy during missions.
Not only was it good to know about the physiology of your allies, in case they were ever hurt, and there were no professional medics around - but in the case of the Saiyans, notorious backstabbers, it would also have been good to know about any recorded weakness just in case he ever had to defend himself against the overpowered warriors. One could never have too much information.
Of course, he hadn’t really had the time at the start, while fighting to keep up with his messenger division training. And, when he’d ended up being posted on the other side of the universe where there were next to no planets left to violently subjugate, the subject had been pushed back some more. There were no Saiyans around, after all, the rather small population already busy enough fighting in other freer galaxies.
Still, he’d kept it in the back of his mind - even as he’d learned the basics of their language as he rose the messenger ranks - hoping he might find the time soon…
Then, barely three years into his employment as captain messenger of the First Scientist Division, Planet Vegeta had been obliterated. With nearly all of the Saiyans of the known universe gathered up on it. And there had been no survivors to even shoot down as they circled around the debris that had been left behind.
And it hadn’t seemed too relevant of a study subject anymore.
(Then, of course, all records of the Saiyan race that hadn’t gone up in flames in the destruction of their planet had somehow ended up destroyed.)
(He was almost surprised that the Force had bothered to keep their efforts to erase the existence of the nearly extinct race a secret at all.)
Now, in hindsight and over three decades later - after betraying the most powerful being in the universe they are now on the run from, and trying to devise a way to actually avoid his unwanted attention in at least the near future - Lemo supposes even the scraps he could have found once would now be of use, considering they have their very own Saiyan to care for now.
From his perch on top of one of the crates of provisions they’ve gathered before showing up on Vampa again, Lemo looks up from the maps he’s grabbed during their supply run and the tentative itinerary he's been careful to keep entirely out of their computers, and towards the two youngsters he's now hitched his ship to against what is basically the rest of the universe.
Chee Lai has taken to rifling through a few clothes she grabbed during their trip over, all of them at least twice their shared size and therefore just large enough for Broly to squeeze into - and now that she’d played dress up with a timidly intrigued Broly, she’d climbed up on her own crate and let him examine the hairbrush she’d picked up before getting to work on the wild mane of his black hair. She’d set aside the ribbons she’d likely meant to use to tie it up, though, and he thinks it’s really a good idea to take those kinds of things slow.
(He thinks of presenting a watch-like communicator - voluntarily different from scouters in every way - to Broly a few days before.)
(He thinks of watching the giant in front of him - a man that’s over double his height and triple his width, who could kill the lot of them and destroy this entire planet, and probably do even more damage to the entire system in the process - and seeing him flinch at the mere sight of a metallic circle.)
(Maybe they should go for other materials. For now. Maybe forever.)
The ever wild mane in question is apparently less of a mess than Lemo would have expected, considering the everything of Broly’s life up until now, and Chee Lai is ever so careful whenever she encounters a knot she doesn’t seem to be pulling on his hair much at all. Not that he thinks Broly would have reacted much to that kind of pain, but he knows the kind of care their very own thief is showing him matters more than anything, including her doing her best to spare him even those little pains. That kind of kindness is rare in the universe these days, whether on an arid hostile planetoid, inside of the largest empire currently in power, or on the little they’d seen of that earth-Saiyan’s entourage.
That attention is probably why Chee Lai has been at this for the better part of the last half hour - and maybe because of the way that Broly himself, already pretty docile after he’d been dragged around changing outfits for another half hour before, had relaxed five minutes into the hairbrushing to the point of visibly dozing off against the crate Chee Lai is sitting cross-legged on, his non-scarred cheek lightly pressed against her knee - and why she’s still at it, even know that all of his hair seems well and detangled, the pass of her brush more like light strokes by this point.
They look like goddamn cats taking a rest, if he looks at them in just the right angle, and isn’t that just terrible ?
Lemo huffs a fond chuckle even as he looks back down at his maps, the relative calm something he’s happy to bask in while they can enjoy it, finding solace in seeing those two specific youngsters actually relax - not in the way Chee Lai pretends to when she snarks and snickers and pickpockets, not in the way Broly tries to blow off steam when he disappears on a hunt, but in a genuine moment of shared calm comfort.
He knows that this peace won’t last - that they’ll be found out sooner than later - like the earth Saiyan already has. But for now, he sure won’t be the one to remind them of it, not any time sooner than strictly necessary. It’s not like they don’t know about it anyways, Chee Lai’s new blades and constant tinkering just as much proof as Broly’s training and study regimen and Lemo’s own semi-frantic research and mapping, no matter the calm of this small moment.
Driving themselves crazy worrying 24/7 would only make it all worse - considering Chee Lai’s twitchiness, Lemo’s tendency to pessimism, and Broly's reaction to too much stress. Rest is part of a healthy life, and even on the run from Frieza, they can take a minute, can't they ?
They can take a minute or twenty, in the grand scheme of things, because what's surviving worth without living ?
And life's short out there, and shorter yet with the Force and her emperor on their heels.
Hafta enjoy it while they can.
“Hey, ‘Ly ?”
Chee Lai speaking up has him looking up from his map and back towards the two again just a handful of minutes later.
She's set the brush down by now, combing her fingers through Broly’s detangled hair instead - and why does it remind him of pets out of all things - and now is blinking in mild disbelief down at the black strands she's been examining.
Clearly, she's seeing something he isn't, from a few feets’ distance.
Broly, who'd been dozing off, visibly comes back to full awareness where he sits - even if he doesn't move from his spot sitting against the crate, his eyes shifting to look up at her through his lashes - a familiar questioning look on his face.
“Mmh ?”
While he doesn't sound worried, he's clearly focused on her now, ready to jump to his feet at the slightest sign of genuine distress.
How did they get so lucky to find the one good Saiyan out there that wasn't either dead or likely brain damaged ?
(Not that the second isn't a possibility for Broly, even if it's sad to think about sometimes.)
(Even Saiyans get hurt, no matter how well they recuperate, and mental scars are worse than anything else no matter the species.)
“Did you always have those white hairs in there ?”
Broly blinks once.
Chee Lai blinks back at him.
Lemo blinks twice at the two of them.
“White… hairs ?”
And there he goes, craning his neck, trying to see what's behind his own head. Lemo can't help the little huff that escaped him, even as he sets his old-timer pencil down. And he doesn't miss the small chuckle Chee Lai lets out before she's patting their Saiyan’s head out of the twister he's putting himself through with a grin.
“Gimme a sec, big guy, I've got you.”
It's easy for the oldest of the trio to set aside his maps and notebook, jumping off the crate he'd been sitting on - and lightly wincing as his acting articulations remind themselves to him when he lands on the hard rock of Vampa’s floor - and take a few steps towards the youngsters to check out whatever’s going on.
Meanwhile, Chee Lai has picked up the brush she's set aside a little earlier, and eyes the few stray hairs caught there with a critical eye.
“Aha ! There !”
Triumphantly - and Lemo's becoming used to that tone of hers by now, whenever she succeeds in her tinkering or when Broly got his earth alphabet down a few days ago, an echo of when she'd cracked that wretched remote under her heel - Chee Lai holds up a single hair into the low light of the cavern.
Lemo squints, while Broly tilts his head, just a little under eye-level when he's sitting like this.
The old deserter blinks.
It… it actually is a stark white hair.
And when he turns to look at Broly's head…
He finds that he can see quite a few of them here and there, through the deep dark black of his wild mane, more than he'd expect considering even he knows how Saiyan aging basically works.
Chee Lai shows the hair to Broly next, and he nearly goes cross-eyes trying to focus his gaze on it, that sale confused frown he often sports on his face again.
Lemo supposes that it's not all that surprising to find grey hairs on his head, that Broly is at least 50 years-old considering he had to have been born at least a fair few days if not more before the destruction of Vegeta, that gray hairs are part of living…
But…
Broly looks young.
Younger than the two Saiyans of Earth even.
And grey hairs… they don't only come from age.
They come from hard lives too.
(Lemo spares a glance towards Chee Lai, and he sees the way her smile is just a smidge less bright than usual, even as she sets the hair aside and begins to braid a loose strand of Broly's hair in answer to his timid question.)
(He happens to know, from digging into her file before he deleted the two of them from the Force’s system entirely, that her own hair hasn't always been white.)
(He's never mentioned it, and neither has she, though.)
Broly's the one to pull him from his thoughts next, while he fiddles with the end of the braid Chee Lai has just tied off, frowning a little at the visible white hairs that have become more visible in the smaller section.
“... Father said Saiyan hair doesn't change until they're old.”
Right.
There's a touchy subject.
They haven't talked about Paragus since he died.
(Is there anything to say, really, now that the guy is dead and gone ?)
(Lemo maintains what he said weeks prior : his dad was a piece of work, and Paragus was much worse, no matter his self-righteous reasoning.)
But, of course, anything Saiyan - anything before Earth, really, and even some things after it - would link back to Broly's father, wouldn't it ?
He may have raised his son like an unstable weapon instead of an independent warrior - he may have never intended Broly to live for anything but the old man’s own revenge - but he raised him as a Saiyan nonetheless.
Wouldn't he know best about those kinds of things ?
In hindsight, Lemo wishes he'd studied the Saiyans, once upon a time.
But there's nothing to do about the past now, is there, except learn from it.
Chee Lai has scowled for a moment at the mention of Paragus, still sitting back with Broly’s temple turned against her knee, before she let the emotion melt away - likely because of how little care there is in her mind for a dead man when it's the three of them that are here, still kicking and running and picking up the pieces left behind.
(He wonders whether she would have survived the Force, had they never met Broly, with that compassion of hers.)
(He wonders how fast she would have climbed up the ranks, ruthlessness wrapped around her like armor, when push came to shove and she wouldn't ever think to budge.)
She thumbs at the same braid Broly is still staring at, tilting her head to the side in a mischievous way instead of the innocent angle of their Saiyan’s sometimes, and smiles again.
Broly stares at her while she does.
And Lemo holds back a sigh.
These two are going to be a handful.
(If they can work past their respective issues, that is.)
(If the three of them - whether together or not - live long enough to even begin to.)
She’s still grinning wide when she leans in just that bit closer, twirling the braid in her fingers, the anise green of her skin a stark contrast to both the jet black and the threading of white. It’s quite different from the grey shine of her own white hair, closer to faded silver than the pure black and white of Broly’s. Different too from the white hairs Lemo used to have, before he started going bald, a few days after the destruction of Vegeta and nearly all of its neighbouring astral bodies.
Chee Lai, still holding loosely onto Broly’s braid, boops at his nose with the index finger of her other hand.
“It’s very neat, you know. Makes you unique. And it's pretty too.”
And Broly, after one or three beats, blushes.
And Chee Lai giggles in answer while starting on another braid.
And Lemo thinks the lot of them - if they survive the Force and the Saiyan and everything in between - will be just fine.
(Later, he’ll think of those grey hairs again, and of the kind of stress one would have to put a species as durable as Saiyans seemingly are through, to get them to actually show up in their manes of thick black hair, especially the kind of non-haircut Broly has.)
(Later, he’ll think of a man so massive he’d thought they were about to die - and a man so strong he’d just crushed a gigantic monster into the ground with one foot - and a man so powerful none of their enhanced scooters could gauge his power level as anything other than a frightening ‘Error’.)
(Later, he’ll think of that same man gripping a collar he surely had more than enough strength to break if he wanted to, looking more frightened that he’d ever thought that face could ever express - while the old man calling himself his Father held that remote aloft like more of a simple tool and less of the torture implement it really was.)
(Later, he’ll think of what Paragus called a ‘measured shock’ - and of the way the electricity had visibly arched into the air around Broly instead - sending the gentle giant to the floor, screaming in agony, in barely a second. And he’ll think that, no matter how durable Saiyans might be, Paragus had still definitely been lying when he’d called it anything short of ‘cruel’.)
(Later, he’ll watch the braids in Broly’s hair while they eat, and trace the lines of white that are now much more obvious than in his previous unkempt haircut, and think about harsh planets, hard lives, and harmful fathers. And about the damage these things can do, the latter most of all, even if you don’t quite realize, or understand, or believe it.)
(Later, he’ll pick up a comm so old there’s very little chance they’ll be tracked down by the Force because of it - and it wouldn’t even matter if they did, anyways, considering how fast the earth-Saiyan himself had managed to find them anyway, and the fact that Paragus had mentioned Vampa to Frieza anyways - and dig as deep as he can in the deepest darkest recesses of his old databases, hunting for anything on the Saiyans he might have kept.)
(Later, he'll learn all he can about the warrior race, and he'll understand a little more about what's typical in Broly as a Saiyan, and what isn't. He’ll confirm, too, that white hairs like that shouldn't have appeared for at least another three decades or more on his hair. He'll even meet another Saiyan at some point, younger than Broly by over two decades, with a few stray gray hairs growing in. He'll learn about a toddler, and a fighter, and a saviour - and a teenager, and a student, and a scientist - and all the pain in between.)
But for now - for now, he'll enjoy the sight of his two young friends relaxing in the sunset light, and push aside thoughts of darker days both past and future, and settle on enjoying the sparks of light of the present instead - and he'll agree with Chee Lai on how nice the contrast looks in Broly's hair.
Life has always been hard out there.
Happiness has, is, will be even harder to find.
It doesn't mean it isn't worth the hassle, in the end.