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The complex knots of the gigantic tree that forms the major part of Beerus' world, and the crevices that can be found between them, are the closest thing to a cave that exists on the strange planet.
The walls aren't carved in rock, the floor isn't clumped up dirt, the sky outside isn't the right shade…
But it's still more familiar than anything else on this strange planet has been so far.
(Familiar, yes, but not safe.)
(The cave his father had chosen as their 'base' had been safer than the rest of Vampa, but danger always lurked even there, without fail.)
(It had been in that cave, Broly remembers very well, that he had first felt the burn of the collar around his neck-)
That memory, and many others, run through his head like stampeding beetles from the moment he runs from the spar.
His father is in all of them - and his shadow blinks in every corner of the wooden cave - and his voice fills Broly's ears with grit.
In memories of the caves dug into every pillar of stone of nVampa, by creatures and meteors and training, that he'd always considered home more than he ever did the broken ship his father kept as a base. Memories of the days and nights he would spend there by himself - before his father's shadow would tower over him, and his hand would reach out to pull him to his feet, and his voice would command him forward. Memories of walking back to that cave - sometimes bruised, sometimes limping, sometimes bloody, never enough for his father - to settle down in some (creux) just close enough to the entrance he could still see the stars.
The past bleeds into the present now, he thinks, like his bleeding hand. He clenched his fists too hard during the spar earlier, he carved little crescents into his palms, and they haven't scabbed over yet. He looks towards his father's scoff, catches a glimpse of blood dripping down a bearded chin, and looks back to the strange purple sky instead.
How long has he been there ?
Broly isn't as familiar with the way time passes here as he was on Vampa, and he's not sure the stars here are trustworthy in the way his suns used to be, but he guesses it's been at least an hour now.
An hour since he ran.
(He remembers it all in glimpses, in snaps of his friends' faces, from the moment he turned away from Goku-Kakarot.)
(He remembers Lemo looking kind of sick where he stood on the sidelines.)
(He remembers Chee Lai looking enraged.)
Some kind of worry gnaws at him when he thinks of the two friends he made only a few weeks ago back on that weird giant ship, like Bah gnawing on some bit of prey he hadn't just swallowed outright, while he leans a little further towards the lip of the cavity for a better look outside.
Where are his friends right now ?
He's far away from the place where they'd spared - far from their makeshift campsite, he knows too, because Chee Lai had forbidden any type of fighting where their supplies could be damaged, with a pointed glare towards a grinning Kakarot - and he's not too sure of how far he got before he found this hole near the base of the tree. The world had been a blur around him while he'd run, but he doesn't know if it was because his eyes kept focusing on shadows that weren't quite there instead of his surroundings, or because he was going too fast for them to adjust again.
It's only been something like an hour, maybe, but Broly knows he had been capable of running to the other side of the planet in less than two back on Vampa. It only took him twenty minutes to run to the edge of the planet usually, so if he sped up, even without thinking… And his calves hurt a little, so he probably did run away so fast only the cat god, the magician, and maybe Kakarot-Goku might have seen where he went.
Meanwhile, his friends had discarded the old scooters that had let them process unnatural speeds weeks ago, and Chee Lai hadn't had time to finish her own new prototype yet since they got caught by Kakarot and his friends on their way away from Vampa a few days back.
All they'd probably seen was Broly freeze, and stumble back, and start to run.
Leaving them behind, with people he knows they're afraid of, people they cannot protect themselves from because Broly can't even protect himself from them. Leaving them behind when he knows they're not comfortable around the other people on the strange planet. When he was supposed to protect them.
Without thinking, he's grabbing at his hair in fistfuls, folding his knees up against his chest with a choked grunt lodged deep in his throat.
And his father's shadow towers over him again, that familiar metallic remote in his hand, disgust carved out on his face…
He feels lighening race through his bones…
And it hurts.
(He's light years away from Vampa. His father has been dead for weeks. His collar has been broken for even longer.)
(But Broly isn't free.)
(He might never ever be.)
He couldn't tell how long he spent in that nook before Chee Lai and Lemo find him. The suns turning around the god planet - and its not the other way around, the magician said when Lemo had asked, because the laws of nature didn't please the cat god when he first settled here - but he thinks it might have been a few more hours.
"Broly !"
Mostly, he thinks so because Chee Lai doesn't look like she's one breath away from trying to murder anyone who'd look at them for too long, and because the smell of smoke that usually trails after Lemo for hours after cooking is almost gone.
"Hey, buddy, good to see you."
That last point is what Broly gets stuck on, for no clear reason, and he's still staring at the small alien while his two companion carefully climb and jump their ways over the lip of the cavity and towards the back of the cave.
Since the cat god decided Lemo cooked so well he would become his personal cook, their older friend has spent hours every day either in the cat god's home inside of the massive tree trunk, or in that kitchen the magician made for him outside when everyone had been watching Kakarot-Goku try and fail to touch the magician in a parody of hunting. He's been cooking for every meal of the day - for hours and hours while Chee Lai tinkers and Broly tries to help best as he can even when they promise he's allowed to rest - and he barely takes off his apron during the day.
(The regular meals Broly is still learning about and sometimes struggling with, when Vampa had no schedule, and Broly ususally hunted when his father ordered him or if he was hungry.)
(Lemo cooks for breakfast, lunch, dinner, all those new words Broly's been learning both in Universa, Saiyajin and Terran, and even other snacks during the day because the cat god is always hungry and Kakarot-Goku burns through whatever he ate in hours and the magician likes to try new things all the time too, and Broly watches it all with wonder.)
(Life here can be good too.)
(It doesn't make the bad things better…)
(But it's probably important to remember.)
He's been cooking so much, so often, the smell of smoke has been clinging to him every day and deep into the night ever since he started this new job too.
"You're way more flexible than you look, bud, no idea how you got in there !"
And, Broly thinks, the spar with Kakarot-Goku had happened right before lunch. Lemo had finished prepping all of his ingredients while the magician had set up the arena. He'd stopped to watch too.
It's been hours, and Broly can't tell how many, but he's sure that lunch and snack time and dinner have gone by since then.
But the smoke usually clinging to Lemo is almost completely gone.
How long have his friends been looking for him ? What happened after he left that Lemo maybe braved the cat god's anger to follow Chee Lai here ? Are they still safe, now that Broly's messed it all up with Kakarot, and dragged his friends into it too by making them run after him ?
What's going to happen now ?
It's that lizard emperor all over again, that Frieza, who'd been so helpful when he thought Broly could be useful to his cause - until he lost control, until Kakarot's strange two-voice ally beat him nearly to death, until Chee Lai and Lemo stole his wish all for Broly's sake too - some powerful person they've probably angered just because he can't do the one thing he's good for-
A small green hand lands on his knee.
It's only thanks to the weeks they've spent togeter that he doesn't lash out at the sudden touch.
Only because his instincts have learned to recognize Chee Lai in a way he'd never managed even for Paragus before.
"Broly ?"
He blinks, once, twice, thrice, faster than his constant hunting had trained him to.
Looks up into her eyes, instead of her hand, sees Lemo right besides her.
Sees none of the anger, the fear, the disgust in their eyes.
Only the concern he took a while to start to recognize.
And that's when the dam breaks.
"Oh, buddy-"
He doesn't cry.
"'Ly, it's okay, bud."
He can't remember ever crying.
"-let it out."
He still crumbles when Chee Lai and Lemo wrap their arms around him.
And if he doesn't dare to hug them back...
He doesn't pull away either.
Chee Lai and Lemo are amazing in so many ways, extraordinary people amongst the billions and trillions inhabiting the universe, even if they didn't believe it.
There were very few people out there who would have done what they have.
Rise against Frieza's wishes to save a man they'd only met days prior, stand between Broly and the most powerful beings in the known universe not once, not twice, but many times - when Goku had found them on Vampa, when the Earth ship had intercepted theirs, when Beerus had demanded a fight when they'd first landed - follow after their companion and turning their backs on the literal god they were tentatively under the protection of, search for Broly after he'd run away with a wild wave of ki tearing the soil beneath him, approach him in the dark, reach out a hand…
All of it with no fear.
(And they were not fearless, no, not at all. They were afraid of Goku, afraid of Frieza, afraid of Beerus. Afraid of the whole universe around them that was just stronger and colder and crueler than they could survive if it truly came for them.)
(And they'd been afraid of Broly at first too, beneath the exhilaration of having found what they'd been sent out for, his strenght so overwhelming only the ignorant wouldn't have been scared.)
(But they weren't scared of him any longer.)
(And he knew it.)
(Scared for him, though ?)
(And it meant so so so much.)
(Definitely.)
On this half dead planet home of an angel, a God of Destruction, a three times over ascended Saiyan - with their companion an overpowered traumatized mutant - they are probably the most extraordinary people one could find there.