Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was probably something more awkward than standing around dry-eyed while other people were weeping, but in the moment Buggy couldn’t think of anything. He inched away from the Whitebeard Pirates, crying over their dead, and barked an order at the prisoners who’d been following him around—if only to give himself something to do. Whatever, they were happy to do anything he asked, and with all the dead and dying to sort through a couple dozen extra hands could only help.

Buggy scowled, crossing his arms and watching them work. So many dead, and only two anyone really cared about. Well, not that he was in any position to judge… he only cared about one of them himself, and he wished he didn’t. Concern—grief—was just a distraction, and Buggy was in no position to let himself get distracted. He was a pirate captain without his ship or his crew, on a Marine-occupied island. A sinking island, yes, but still their territory. He needed a way out, and the obvious choice was too busy being the center of attention for Buggy to ask such a sizable favor of him.

That guy with the wax powers and the very obvious number theme approached Buggy. “There you are,” he said, sounding relieved.

“There you are,” Buggy said, eyeing him up and down. He looked like he’d been through the wringer. “What happened to you?”

Three waved a hand in the air dismissively. “An uncharacteristic spell of bravery.” Sending a brief, pained look towards the half-burnt body everyone was giving a wide berth, he said, “It made no difference. I can’t imagine I’ll indulge myself like that again.”

Buggy snorted. Yeah, wasn’t that always the way? You tried to do the thing that seemed right and good, one time, and it blew up in your face.

“And what have you been up to?” Three asked, taking up a position next to Buggy, mimicking his posture.

Buggy grimaced. “Getting jerked around by Red-Hair,” he grumbled. “That ass.”

Three gave Buggy a startled look, glancing past him at Shanks, surrounded by pirates from his crew and Whitebeard’s. “Is it really wise of you to be talking like that behind an Emperor’s back?”

“Hardly behind his back, I just told him as much.”

Three’s shoulders spasmed, and he clutched at his chest. “Oh no,” he breathed, “you really will say anything to anyone, won’t you?”

“Not anyone,” Buggy scoffed. “I have some sense. But if I’ve told Shanks he’s an ass once, I’ve told him a hundred times. It’s not news.” And after hearing it a hundred times he’d clearly gotten used to it; Shanks had been totally unbothered, already moving on to the next item on his list once he confirmed that Buggy had taken care of his straw hat problem like a good little errand boy. Ooh, just thinking about it made Buggy’s blood pressure spike! How dare he!

“…right, you two were on the Pirate King’s crew together,” Three said, a calculating look in his eye. He nodded slowly. “I’ll just go ahead and make the arrangements on your behalf, then?”

Buggy grunted acknowledgement, not paying him much attention. He didn’t want to think about his old captain right now.

Three wandered off, and Buggy let his eyes drift across the slowly emptying battlefield for a few minutes. The scurrying movements of the Marines, in their blood-tinged whites, was somehow calming at this distance. Then the phrase ‘make the arrangements on your behalf’ finally sunk in, and Buggy jerked his head around to see Three sweating wax bullets and trying to talk to Shanks, who was frowning at him in polite confusion.

Damn it all.

“—hoping you would consider, ah, well…” Three was saying as Buggy raced up behind him.

Shanks spotted Buggy and his face lit up. “Buggy!” Ugh. Where did Shanks get off acting so happy to see him? “Hey, this guy—Galdino, right?—was saying he’s a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, we got real close in prison,” Buggy said dryly, nudging Three—Galdino?—to one side. He wilted gratefully; as suspected, he’d been too nervous about badmouthing an Emperor to handle having Shanks’ full attention. “Listen, Red-Hair.”

Shanks’ smile dimmed. Ugh.

“I know it’s been…” How long had it been, ten…? No, no, that time did not count. Then it had to be twenty, at least. “Twenty years since we’ve seen each other.”

“Twenty-two,” Shanks corrected instantly.

Buggy blinked. “Sure. And let me make myself clear: I would have been perfectly happy to go another twenty without seeing you. I would’ve been thrilled to never see you again.” Galdino made a small, pained sound and put his head in his hands; Buggy ignored him.

Shanks gave Buggy a knowing look. “But…?”

Buggy’s shoulders slumped. He sighed. “But,” he conceded, “I need a ride.”

Shanks gave him an easy smile. “Sure, no problem.”

Buggy held up a hand, a visual ‘not so fast.’ “And!”

“And?” Shanks raised an eyebrow expectantly.

Buggy split himself at the waist, floated up ten feet or so, and whistled. “Hey!” he called out, “how many of you guys are coming with me?”

And every man within hearing distance in one of those striped prison uniforms lifted his hands in the air and shouted, “All of us, Captain Buggy!”

Buggy dropped back down to earth, reconnecting to his legs. Looking at Shanks, he gestured to the crowd. “Them too.”

Shanks blinked. Buggy bit back a smile; it wasn’t often he managed to stun Shanks into silence. Shanks glanced at one of the men he’d been talking with when Galdino approached—gray-haired, an X of a scar on his cheek. That man grimaced, then nodded. “Okay,” Shanks said. “It’ll be a tight fit, but we should be able to pull it off.”

He was looking at Buggy in a way that made him bristle instinctively.

“What?!” he snapped.

“Nothing!” Shanks said, still smiling that stupid, fond smile. When Buggy scowled at him, Shanks just shook his head and said, “You’ve gotten popular lately, is all.”

Buggy’s scowl deepened. “Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious! It’s nice to see!” Shanks said, holding up a hand in front of himself defensively. “Long overdue, if you ask me.”

Sure. Buggy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. How long until we leave?”

The smile slipped off Shanks’ face. “If you and yours want to, you can board the Red Force now. But we’re not leaving until the dead are dealt with.”

Buggy cast Shanks a sour look. “Still such a soft heart,” he said, a note of displeasure warring with one of… ugh, sap. Shanks hadn’t changed a bit; what was wrong with Buggy that he liked that?

Shanks gave him a small, private smile. “Always.”

Buggy scoffed, and walked off. A few words of gratitude were exchanged, and Galdino came scrambling after him.

“I’d thank you for keeping me from having a meltdown in front of an Emperor—if your words to him didn’t make me melt down anyway. What is wrong with you?” Galdino demanded.

“What?” Buggy asked, digging a pinky finger around in his ear. “He said yes, didn’t he?”

“Why a man like that would let you treat him so disrespectfully…”

“That’s just how he is,” Buggy said.

“To you, maybe.”

“To everyone,” Buggy insisted. When Galdino didn’t look convinced, Buggy shook his head and said, “You’ll see.”

He didn’t get a chance, at least not right away; after his brief venture into heroism, and the subsequent harassment by the Marines, Galdino was tired enough to take one of Shanks’ junior officers up on an offer of a place to lie down, and he was out of the way and out cold when Shanks and his senior officers came back aboard.

They stood silently on the forecastle to bear witness to the mass ship burial that the sheer volume of dead had required, and then the senior officers each went their own way, all of them looking far more exhausted than the day’s events could possibly warrant. Maybe there was something to the talk Buggy had heard of just how far and how fast they’d had to travel to get to Marineford after confronting Kaidou. They’d certainly cut things pretty close, arriving when they did. Too late for—

Well, whatever the reason, the senior officers were gone, the junior officers had disappeared, and the lowest ranked crewmen were busy making room for all the other pirates coming aboard; Buggy and his fans, yes, but also Marco the Phoenix, and a number of Whitebeard Pirates, maybe half a dozen of whom Buggy recognized by appearance, if not by name.

They’d all seemed ancient, to Buggy’s teenaged eyes; now, he was almost disturbed at how little they’d changed. Nearly twenty-five years, and most of them hadn’t even altered their hairstyle. On one hand: they were aging incredibly well. On the other: what kind of pirate didn’t change up his look once in a while?! Shanks was much the same way—he’d picked up that cape, sure, but other than that his style was essentially unchanged from their childhood.

No, the things that had changed about his look, he’d had very little control over.

The source of the scar was obvious, had been obvious from the moment Buggy had first seen it. But the arm…

There were rumors, of course. Buggy hadn’t meant to listen in, the first time he came across someone speculating about what happened to Red-Haired Shanks’ left arm. But he had, that time, and the time after that, and the time after that. And most of those rumors were nonsense, he knew that without having to ask. But the fact that nobody seemed able to agree on how it had happened… that suggested Shanks wasn’t telling people.

It was rare to see Shanks keeping a secret so obviously. Buggy couldn’t deny being tempted.

And now Shanks was right there. Just sitting on a barrel, watching other members of his crew do real work. No senior officers to draw his attention away. All Buggy had to do was ask.

He couldn’t bear to ask.

He had to know.

He could not ask.

“Looking at you, I can’t tell which of the rumors is true,” Buggy said. (Not asked, technically!) Shanks glanced up at Buggy, curious. “Did you go after Whitebeard and get punished for it like that Crocodile guy, or did you try and see if your Armament Haki was stronger than a Sea King’s teeth?”

Shanks huffed out a little laugh. “Are those the only rumors circulating these days?”

“The only ones I considered remotely plausible, anyway.”

“Well, the second one’s not far off,” Shanks said.

Buggy stared. That couldn’t be the whole story. Not for him.

Shanks sighed. “Look, Buggy, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this right now. Unless you know my ship better than me, and can figure out where we’re going to put a twenty-two foot long corpse—” He cut himself off with a shake of the head. “Any other day, I would love to sit down with you and catch up. Just not today.”

Right. Buggy flushed. Shanks was an Emperor. Even if he was the youngest and weakest of them, that still required a certain something. Leadership. Responsibility. Just because he still looked like the Shanks Buggy knew, slacking off, doing as he liked, didn’t actually make him so.

“Buggy,” Shanks said, voice tight.

“Does he have to be lying down?” Buggy blurted out. Shanks blinked up at him, surprised to hear Buggy trying to be helpful. “I mean, I know how normal bodies work, death stiffness wears off eventually, but this is Whitebeard. If anyone could stay standing the whole of his death, it’s that guy.”

Shanks frowned. “I did consider that, briefly. But if we’re wrong, having to clear that much space in the time it takes him to fall over…”

Buggy cringed. “Right, that’d be way worse.” He thought about alternatives. This boat of Shanks’ was nice, but it did not have that kind of room to spare, not if he was taking shipless pirates aboard. (Which: of course he was, this was Shanks.) “What about one of the Whitebeard Fleet ships, are any of them stable enough to carry him? They’re his crews, I bet they’d be honored to be his last ride.”

Shanks nodded thoughtfully. “There are a few still seaworthy.” Running his hand through his hair, he muttered, “But like hell I’m getting involved with the intra-crew politics there. I’ll ask Marco, he’ll know which one to pick to step on the fewest toes.” Getting to his feet, Shanks visibly swayed for a moment.

“Whoa!” So it wasn’t just his officers who were exhausted. “Are you—?”

“I’m—fine,” Shanks said, pinching at his brow. He glanced at Buggy, who had foolishly reached out to, what, steady him? offer an arm to lean on? He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. Shanks sighed. “It’s not as fun as we’d thought it’d be when we were kids, is it? Being the ones in charge.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Buggy said, thinking back to that minute, fresh out of Impel Down, when anything had seemed possible with all those guys at his back, cheering him on. “It has its moments.”

Shanks gave him a considering look. He smiled. “I guess it does. Thanks for the suggestions, Buggy. Go find a spot to lie down, would you? You look like you could use some beauty sleep.”

And—okay, Buggy knew he shouldn’t say it. Even in the moment he knew it was stupid. But he could never leave well enough alone when Shanks took a cheap shot at him—especially not after the way he’d been jerked around earlier, all for the sake of that stupid hat—and that day had been on his mind. So, in response to the insult to his looks, Buggy said, “Gee, and here I thought I was gorgeous.” And because he really couldn’t help himself, it seemed, when Shanks gave him a blank look he fluttered his eyelashes and added, “With stunning eyes.”

Shanks stared.

In the time it took for Buggy to blink, he was shoved into the closest wall. He’d tear Shanks a new one for halfheartedly trying to give him a concussion, but the hand that’d pressed him shoulder-first into the wall was drifting up, up his neck, cupping his cheek, and Buggy found himself as lost for words this time as last.

Shanks leaned in. Just as he got too close for propriety, he sucked in a breath. In a whisper, he said, “That was you?”

Buggy gave him a look that said: Obviously. That said: How else would I know about it? That said: Why? Does it matter?

Did it matter? He stared up at Shanks, and, far from the first time, had no idea what he was thinking.

Shanks took a step back and laughed, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “Damn it all,” he said under his breath, “I really don’t have time for this right now.” His eyes shut, his shoulders slumped, and to Buggy it looked like he’d aged ten years in an instant. Someone out of sight called for their ‘Boss,’ and the exhaustion, the previous, unreadable emotion, it all fell away. Here was Red-Haired Shanks the Emperor, for the first time since he’d cowed the Marines into allowing the Whitebeard Pirates their dead. He stalked off, calling out, “Get some sleep, Buggy,” over one shoulder, cool as anything.

Buggy, feeling distinctly uncool and also like he’d never sleep again, scurried away in search of a private corner to panic in. He found a deck a level or two up that was deserted for the moment—crew quarters, maybe?—and huddled by the railing. Had anyone seen that? Stupid, stupid—

“Did you see that?” someone a deck below said excitedly to their companions. “Captain Buggy got that Emperor mad enough to shove him into a wall, and then without a word forced him to retreat! He’s truly amazing!”

Buggy buried his face in his hands and groaned. So stupid.

“Hey, quick question,” said someone at Buggy’s elbow some time later. It was Three—er, Galdino, whatever his name was, looking very fearful and annoyed and sweaty. (Or maybe that was the wax? Buggy didn’t know much about how his powers worked.) It seemed his rest had not been very restful. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

Buggy gave him a dirty look. “How’s that?”

“Word among the men,” this was how Galdino had been referring to the prisoners who’d followed the two of them out of Impel Down lately, ‘the men,’ like they were Buggy’s soldiers or something, “is that Red-Haired Shanks kabedon’d you, and you turned him down. You realize he’s our only possible ride out of here at this point, right? Why would you antagonize him like that?”

Buggy’s face screwed up. Like he needed to be reminded of how beholden he was to Shanks. But also: “The hell’s that word mean?”

“Kabedon? It’s when someone shoves you into a wall to intimidate and flirt with you.”

Buggy sputtered, face hot. “Flirt with—?!” Oh fuck, was that really what they were saying? “Hell no, no way! Shanks would never—” Well. Wouldn’t he?

“I’m just reporting what I’ve heard,” Galdino said, shoving his glasses up his nose. “Oh, no one’s made the flirtatious connection but me, but they all say the two of you got up close and personal, and Red-Hair’s been red-faced ever since. I just put two and two together.”

“It wasn’t like that,” said Buggy, who couldn’t have told Galdino what it was like, since he still had no idea himself.

“No?” Galdino joined Buggy at the railing. They had a good view of the main deck from up here, including a cluster of men having a serious-looking discussion. Since the group included Shanks and Marco the Phoenix, it was probably about Whitebeard and Ace, and where they were taking their bodies and how to do it. Shanks looked tired, but it wasn’t obvious like it had been when it was just the two of them. There was something on his face that Buggy recognized from the day the news about their captain’s arrest broke. A quiet, sad kind of tired.

Feeling someone watching him, Shanks glanced up. Their eyes met for a moment, maybe two. Then Shanks turned away, face slightly, undeniably redder, rubbing his hand over his mouth.

Galdino leaned in close to Buggy’s ear. “You sure about that, Buggy?”

Blushing bright enough to rival his nose, Buggy stomped off, steaming and muttering curses against smart-mouthed wax men under his breath.

But no, he wasn’t sure at all.

Chapter Text

Buggy was still pretty mad at Galdino hours later, when he got fed up with his feet being tripped over in the dark and the rest of him (sitting up in the rigging, sulking hiding just sitting) had gotten cold.

Given the very limited space on the Red Force, the options were to either bunk with someone or sleep on the deck, and Buggy was not about to do that. The men—ugh, now Galdino had him doing it—were way too excited about following Buggy’s every move, he shuddered to think what they might do at night. Assuming he could even get to sleep with all of them hovering like that. And if he was bunking with someone, there was really only the one option: the only guest on this ship who’d treated him like a human being.

But he wasn’t happy about it.

Galdino paid him no mind, using a borrowed mirror to inspect himself as he prepared for bed, applying a thin layer of wax along the edge of his hairline. When he was done with the mirror, he silently held it up for Buggy to look himself over. He used pretty long-lasting makeup, the better to survive bloody fistfights and brackish ocean spray—and it had even survived the sterilizing baths they dunked you in when you arrived at Impel Down! Buggy would write to the brand, to tell them to use that fact in their advertising, but that degree of longevity probably wasn’t a huge selling point now that Ivankov and his ilk had escaped the prison.

Anyway, nothing had happened today that could really mess it up. His face was fine.

…it could use a touch-up, though. Just to solidify the line work on the crossbones, make the edge of his lip really crisp. Buggy touched the corner of his lip, considering, and very much against his will recalled how it had felt for someone else to touch that part of his face.

It had been a long time.

Not so long that Shanks’ hand was the first to touch him since Shanks, mind you. But a long time all the same.

He scowled, and threw himself into bed. Touching up his makeup—and who, exactly, would he be doing that for?! That kind of thinking could wait until morning, when he would hopefully have recovered his sanity in full.

As he was drifting off, Buggy heard Galdino roll over and say, softly, “You may think of that guy as some dope you used to sail with, but fact is he’s an Emperor. One who’s taken an interest in you. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“And who asked you to do that?” Buggy muttered into his pillow.

“No one,” Galdino acknowledged. “But if I’m hitching my wagon to yours—and it sure looks like that’s what’s happening here—I want to make sure we aren’t about to ride off a cliff.”

With that grim visual in his head, Buggy sunk into an uneasy sleep.

The next day dawned warm and bright. Buggy had thoughtlessly picked the side of the bed that sat under the one small window in the room, right where an early morning sunbeam would shine in his eyes. He groaned a protest, but unfortunately, once he was up he was up. Leaving Galdino to sleep his fill, he stretched, grumbled, and made himself presentable.

(This did not involve touching up his makeup in any way.)

A handful of Red-Haired Pirates were also up and about, though Buggy couldn’t tell how many were early risers and how many had been on watch overnight. A few nodded at him with the bleary eyes of hungover men. Uneasy at the acknowledgement, however small, Buggy ducked into the galley, praying that there would be something hot to eat at this hour.

Prayers were answered in the form of the ever-grinning Lucky Roux, who was setting out large pans of a few types of porridge under warming lamps, with toppings (both savory and sweet) laid out in small bowls. Buggy opted for oats with some dried fruit and syrup on top, something that would fill him up and leave a sweet aftertaste. Though he might go back for the rice porridge later if he could get a soft-boiled egg to go with it… oh, eggs. He’d missed eggs.

There were also two steaming pots of liquid sitting to one side, one a tisane that smelled oddly familiar. After a moment, Buggy remembered the hangover cure Rayleigh had sworn by and had to bite back a nauseous stab of nostalgia. He went for the other, not caring what it was so long as it was hot. It turned out to be awfully bitter, so he stole a bit of the porridge syrup to sweeten it.

Loaded down with food and drink, Buggy set himself up next to the kitchen, facing the rest of the galley. No one would be able to sneak up on him but Roux, and the day a man that size could—

“Any special requests?”

Biting back a shriek, Buggy spun to see Roux poking his head through a small window between the kitchen and galley. “I’m no short-order cook,” he said with a grin, “but this early I’m happy to make people what they want, so long as I have the ingredients at hand.”

What Buggy really wanted was a hot dog. Fuck, he missed bread. And meat. But he didn’t want a cheffy take on it, he wanted the greasy sausage and halfway stale bun you got when you bought a hot dog at a boardwalk. Since that wasn't likely to happen… “Over-easy eggs and toast? Oh, and ham, or bacon, whatever meat you’ve got.”

“That, I can do.”

Buggy dug into his oats, watching other men slowly creep into the galley in varying states of wakefulness and dress. The most tired-looking came straight to the kitchen, where Roux already had plates waiting—the night watch men, then, being rewarded for that unpleasant duty. That was smart, Buggy thought, reluctantly admiring the scheme. If he ever got a really top-tier chef in his crew, that’d be the way to get people to do the worst chores: give them good food after.

“Building Snake says we're making landfall this afternoon?” one of the night watch men said to another. Buggy tried to lean in without making it obvious that he was eavesdropping. “Seriously, that soon?”

“We need to resupply if we're gonna keep housing these guys for much longer,” the other replied, glancing over at a cluster of Whitebeard Pirates around one table, Marco’s distinctive tuft of fiery orange hair poking out of the center. “We buy goods today, give all of them shore leave so they aren't in the way while we load up tomorrow, and if the winds favor us we offload the clown and his troupe the next day.”

Buggy’s eyebrow twitched. What now?

“Oh, did Rockstar find the Buggy Pirates already?” Roux asked, handing the pair of men their plates. “When’s he gonna learn he doesn't have to work so hard to impress us?” The three of them shared a laugh over this overachiever who’d apparently found Buggy’s ship in under a day. (The hell were they doing so close to the Calm Belt?) Leaning down to hand Buggy his requested dish, Roux said, “Only three days from your crew! That must be a relief, huh?”

Ignoring the startled looks on the night watch pair’s faces as they left—yes, Buggy had been here the whole time, so good of you to notice—Buggy grabbed the plate and breathed in deeply. Eggs soft as silk, bacon just on the far side of well-done, toast triangles gleaming with butter… god damn, but it was worth being awake at this hour to get quality food. “It’ll be nice to be home,” he said around a mouthful, “but I’ll miss this.”

Roux burst into big, booming laughter. “You guys! Always so appreciative of good food. I’d expected to rate higher than prison fare, but I’m flattered to hear I’m also better than your usual!”

In the middle of stabbing the yolks of his eggs with a sharp corner of toast, Buggy squinted suspiciously up at Roux. “What do you mean by ‘you guys?’”

“I mean Roger Pirates, of course!”

Buggy blinked.

“Shanks is always happy to eat whatever, but he can’t hide how much happier he is when I make his favorites. And that Silvers Rayleigh…” Roux shook his head.

Buggy nearly choked on an egg. “You’ve met Rayleigh?!”

“Oh sure, about ten years back? We’d been on the Grand Line for all of six months, had just hit Sabaody and were debating whether to move forward to the New World or stay in Paradise a little longer, and suddenly Shanks was running off to talk to this old man. Of course I had to feed him, if just to prove to the guy that I deserved my job. He really—” Roux sniffed the air, spun around and yelped, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

So that was how they had Rayleigh’s hangover cure on this ship. “Sabaody, huh?” Buggy wouldn't have thought he’d end up there, with how often world nobles visited the place. Did Rayleigh have a death wish? Or was he old enough at this point to escape notice? Buggy snorted. Lucky him.

A storm of feet came thundering from out on the deck, drawing the attention of most of the room—until the galley doors were flung open to reveal a cluster of men in ragged Impel Down uniforms. They spotted Buggy and cried out, “Captain Buggy! There you are!”

This got eye rolls and looks of annoyance all around, which Buggy almost wanted to join in on. Seriously, did these guys need their hands held on the way to the bathroom too?

“Here I am,” he said dryly, sipping at his drink. “Don’t you guys remember what mealtimes are? Where else would I be at this hour?” Ignoring their responses (“Of course! Captain Buggy’s so smart!” “So logical!”), he edged a little closer to the wall, having a feeling he was about to get crushed.

The men did flock to his side the second they were able—some attempting to offer choice bits of food to him, like he didn’t clearly have better stuff on his plate—but their devotion was thankfully balanced by respect, and they didn’t sit so close he couldn’t breathe.

They were still totally incapable of keeping their mouths shut, though.

“Captain Buggy, will you tell us another of your adventures?”

Buggy turned an almost-grimace into a grin as pirates less enamored with him gave his group a dirty look. Yeah, he wouldn’t want to be in tight quarters with them either, if he were hungover and not a Buggy fan. But as he wasn’t hungover in the slightest, and was the biggest Buggy fan around… how could he ignore another fan’s request?  “Sure! Anything for you guys!” What stories hadn’t he told yet…? “Have I told you the story of… how my crew acquired our fiercest member, Richie the Lion?”

“A lion?!” “No, Captain Buggy!”

“Alright, then. It all started when my brave crew was exploring a jungle island, years ago…” The actual story of how he’d found Richie was nothing special—it was really the story of how he’d met Mohji, a mistreated performer in an East Blue circus where Buggy had hidden out for a few days, until the first time someone mentioned his nose, at which point he’d wrecked the place. But who here would know if he adapted the story of a day he’d spent on a jungle island with Captain Roger and Shanks? (Besides the obvious person, of course.) So he wove a tale of cleverness and might, of Captain Buggy spotting a dangerous beast that had a crying child trapped up in a tree and tricking it into pursuing him instead, only for the lion to be instantly tamed by his sheer power… and ending, of course, with Buggy being richly rewarded for the rescue.

“And that’s why we named him Richie,” Buggy concluded. “After the riches and fortune he brought me that day.”

“How touching!” “How bold!” “How amazing!”

Buggy nearly laughed. How had this become his life?

“Now,” Buggy said, mopping up a smear of egg yolk with his last corner of toast, “are you satisfied for the moment, or do you need another—” Glancing up, he nearly choked on his bite. Shanks was standing in the midst of the men, sipping from a steaming hot mug and watching Buggy with an amused smile on his face.  That fucker definitely remembered being stuck up a tree with a lion clawing at their feet. “Shanks! W-what do you want?”

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” he said, glancing down at the man sitting across the table from Buggy. It seemed the men had been so captivated by Buggy’s storytelling that they hadn’t noticed Shanks either; now that they had, they quickly moved to accommodate him. Taking the suddenly empty seat, he set down his mug—Buggy’s nose wrinkled; it was the hangover tisane—and leaned his chin on his fist. “If you’re taking requests, how about when we first met Oden? That’s a good story.”

“I—that—” Like hell Shanks just wanted a story.

Lucky Roux got Buggy’s attention, and held out a plate clearly meant for Shanks; it was the same kind of breakfast he’d favored as a child, down to the diced tomatoes perched atop the eggs. Originally a deterrent to keep Buggy from stealing his food, at some point it had become a highlight of the dish for Shanks, the weirdo.

…maybe he did just want a story. For all that he was an Emperor now, Shanks didn’t seem to have changed much as a person. Buggy passed the plate along to Shanks, and tried to calm down. There was such a thing as being overly paranoid. “That is a good one.”

Turning to the men watching this exchange wide-eyed, Buggy barked out, “Now, who among you swabs recognizes the name of Kozuki Oden, once heir to the shogunate of Wano?!” This got a couple of looks of recognition, but mostly confusion—except for, from the far side of the room, a few angry grumbles. Buggy laughed. “Don’t tell me the Whitebeards still hold a grudge? Just because our crews fought for three days, and Oden chose to come with us in the end?”

This garnered a far more impressed reaction from the ex-prisoner crowd, and some narrow-eyed looks from the Whitebeards. Oh, they definitely still held a grudge. But Shanks was smiling, and that was enough to make Buggy smirk and say, “Well, feel free to offer corrections if you think I’m telling the story wrong.”

And then he told the most overblown, exaggerated version of events he possibly could.

Some of the Whitebeard Pirates threw out corrections—and insults against Buggy’s memory and honesty—but Buggy gave as good as he got, Shanks occasionally chimed in with innocuous comments like “that’s not how I remember it” to their corrections, and the story was all the better for the pushback. That was the thing about lying: the larger lie sounded more believable when someone objected to small details, because your audience assumed that everything that hadn’t been corrected must be true.

For all the insults and slander tossed around about dead men, the mood in the room was significantly lighter by the time Buggy finished the story. Most of the Red-Haired Pirates had left, their duties for the morning calling, but the former prisoners and Whitebeard Pirates lingered to hear Buggy out until the end, with Oden and his family sailing off on the Oro Jackson, Whitebeard’s men calling out fond farewells and complaints at his disloyalty in equal measure.

Even Marco the Phoenix was convinced to speak up at that point, saying, “Pops never forgave Roger for that, yoi,” with a fond, if sad, smile.

“For stealing Oden?” Buggy snorted a laugh. “If you wanted him to stick around, you should’ve gone to the last island yourselves! That man wanted adventure, and we were going on the greatest one imaginable.”

As Marco protested—Oden had been like family to Whitebeard, didn’t that mean something?—and with the breakfast hour long passed, the crowd began to disperse. (They’d learned yesterday that people who lingered in the galley tended to get roped into dishwashing duty, whether they were crew aboard the Red Force or not.) A couple people still remained: Shanks, who’d spent so much time egging on the Whitebeards that he’d scarcely touched his food; Marco, going back for a third or fourth cup of the not-tisane; and a few especially devoted ex-prisoners, staring starry-eyed at Buggy.

“The last island,” one of them said, voice gone dreamy. “Captain Buggy, what’s it like?”

Buggy blinked. “Laugh Tale?” He glanced at Shanks, who was watching him with a perfectly neutral expression, then down at the bitter dregs left in his cup. What to say? Buggy flushed. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—lie about this, shameful as it was. “I, uh, I don’t know.”

“What?!”

“We didn’t go,” Shanks said, getting a grateful look from Buggy and surprise from the rest of the room. “Buggy got sick, and I stayed behind to look after him.” This won Shanks some undeserved admiration from Buggy’s fans—what a sacrifice he’d made, and for Captain Buggy’s sake! Yeah, right.

…well.

Well.

What other reason could he have had, to stay behind?

Galdino’s (terrible, awful) words from yesterday popped up in Buggy’s head. Gah, surely not that! Surely he hadn’t—not back then. Surely he didn’t now, for that matter! Buggy grimaced. It wasn’t like he could just ask, not around all these people.

Not around them. But maybe…

“Shanks, I—”

“Listen, Buggy…”

They blinked, dumbfounded. After a moment’s silence, Shanks gestured for Buggy to go ahead.

Buggy scratched at an itch along his jawline. It would be nice to be back on the Big Top, where he could get something like a clean shave again. But before that… if he could just get the question out. He gritted his teeth. Why was asking for things so hard? “Yesterday, you said you’d like to sit down and catch up if you weren’t so busy. If you really meant that… I hear tomorrow’s gonna be a shore day, at least for those of us who don’t have a real role on your ship, so I was thinking…” Buggy shrugged, trying for nonchalant. “I dunno. Maybe we could do that? Can you spare an hour for me?”

“Yeah!” Shanks grinned, so wide and bright Buggy could hardly bear to look at it. “Absolutely, I’d love that. But forget an hour, I can give you the whole day if you want.” When Buggy frowned, puzzled, Shanks explained, “I was about to ask you to make time for me.”

Buggy laughed under his breath. “Figures.” All those nerves for nothing! If he’d just kept his mouth shut a few seconds longer, Shanks would’ve asked, and then Buggy could’ve looked like he was doing him a favor by giving him exactly what Buggy wanted. Oh, well.

Turning to the men hovering behind him, Buggy snapped, “You hear that?! You boys are gonna have to find something else to do tomorrow, I’m gonna be too busy to hang around telling you stories of my greatness!”

“Yessir, Captain Buggy!” (“Wow! An elite captain-to-captain meeting!”)

“And if any of you dare to follow or interrupt us, you’ll live to regret it! Spread the word!”

The men disappeared obediently. Buggy let himself bask for a moment—god, but it was nice to be listened to. Even if they did take it to extremes. And even if they only did it because they thought Buggy was a pirate on Captain Roger’s level, and not just a kid the guy had taken a liking to. And even if…

With a little sigh, Buggy turned back around to gather up his dishes. Whatever their reason, baseless or not, they adored him. If they were sticking around, he’d have to get used to it. And who knew, maybe someday he’d do something to make himself worthy of adoration. Buggy glanced up at Shanks and froze at the look on his face. That fond little smile… heat rushed to Buggy’s cheeks, and he groaned, shoving a hand in Shanks’ face.

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?” Shanks laughed, pushing Buggy’s hand out of the way, still looking at him like…

“Like—” Buggy remembered Galdino’s words and violently shoved the memory down. He remembered a similar look on Shanks’ face, years ago, and violently shoved that memory down too. Getting to his feet, he passed his stack of tableware through the kitchen window and bolted. “Just don’t!”

But even as he left, he knew Shanks’ expression hadn’t changed. He was still looking at Buggy like he adored him.

And Buggy had just agreed to spend the day with him tomorrow.

What had he been thinking?

Chapter Text

Later, Buggy wouldn’t be able to recall much of anything that happened the rest of the day with meaningful detail. He’d escaped from the galley and found the men eager to ask him more about his days on Roger’s crew, and he probably answered their questions? Watched the crew of the Red Force go through the motions of navigating to an island and coming into dock? Found himself a spot out of the way when it came time for the officers to disembark and start arranging for the resupply? However it happened, he ended up in the rigging sometime that afternoon—besides being a much easier part of the ship for Buggy to access than other people, it was also the most deserted; no one went up or down those ropes all day—and once again stayed there until it was almost dark, staring out to sea and doing his best to think about nothing in particular.

He didn’t see Shanks once. Buggy would have remembered that. His whole head felt filled with cotton, but he had a feeling one glimpse of that specific shade of red would have turned that cotton to so much ash (and possibly set the rest of him on fire while he was at it).

A whole day alone with Shanks.

No need to wonder when that had last happened—that was the day Roger died. Unless you counted Roger’s presence from way up on the execution platform against the descriptor “alone,” which Buggy didn’t; he hadn’t exactly been able to sit down and talk with them that day. Buggy wasn’t even sure, thinking back, if Roger had seen them in the crowd. At the time he’d been convinced Roger was speaking to Shanks directly, conveying his final wishes in his last words, but that was absurd. The square had been absolutely packed with people, and neither of them had been quite tall enough at that age to stand out, even with Shanks wearing that straw-yellow hat of his.

Anyway. A bad day, to say the least. And there weren’t many good ones leading up to it. Crocus, the two of them, and a few others had decided to go east from Water 7, and pooled their money to buy a small boat for the trip. Along the way everyone found an island they liked enough to live on, or at least to visit for an extended time, except for the two of them. It hadn’t seemed to matter much, until they left Crocus at the mountain where they’d first met him and Buggy and Shanks had suddenly been alone, two boys on a boat that could comfortably hold eight.

Buggy, terrified of what would happen if someone with a grudge against Roger recognized them, had demanded (well, begged, but with a lot of cursing and threats involved) Shanks get them out of the Grand Line and into one of the seas big name pirates didn’t bother with. In retrospect, Shanks had not been confident in his ability to get a Sea King to tow their ship across the Calm Belt, but he’d managed it, and they spent a little time sailing the East Blue without a destination in mind. Those days hadn’t been so bad. A little dull, maybe, after being on the Grand Line so long, but Buggy had been grateful to be bored. There were plenty worse things to be.

Then, all too soon, the news had broke, and they raced to Roguetown.

Now those were stressful days. Being so very aware of how little money they had, and how fast it was disappearing into the hands of Roguetown’s restaurateurs and hostel managers… but it wasn’t like they could leave, not when Roger was going to be there in a matter of days, come home to die.

So Buggy had fallen back on old pickpocket habits, and Shanks had offered himself up as bit of a sideshow, doing sword tricks on the street and having people place bets on whether he could beat them in a fight. He’d fight a man one-handed, blindfolded, whatever got passersby to bet more. It made him a little miserable, especially when people got mad they’d lost to a kid and tried to refuse to pay up, but what else could they do? They were fifteen, and they didn’t have a lot of legally marketable skills.

There must have been good days, though. Days they’d spent together without any stress or fear hanging over their heads… days when they had enough money to get a room with real beds, and slept with the certainty that they could afford to keep the room beyond the one night. Days like that must have happened, but Buggy couldn’t think of any now.

Which meant he had no frame of reference for what tomorrow would be like. He was going in totally blind. And that look on Shanks’ face, that undeniably affectionate look… what the hell did that mean?

You’re overthinking this, a voice from the back of Buggy’s head that had begun to sound a bit like Galdino said. He looks at you like he likes you because he likes you.

But that was stupid. Who liked Buggy? The former prisoners admired him, sure—because they thought he was powerful. So had the Buggy Pirates, and in East Blue it had even been true. Alvida allied herself with him because of their common interests, and when they turned out to work well together it was simply convenient to continue to do so. People associated with Buggy because he was useful to them, not because he was nice, or likable, or anything like that.

Well. There were some people in this world who would be friendly to you regardless of your utility—but that didn’t make Shanks’ behavior make any more sense! Buggy wasn’t a stranger to him the way he’d been to Ace. Shanks knew him, all his worst behaviors and selfish, greedy impulses. He was nothing like the kind of pirate Shanks was, and even less like the kind of pirate Shanks admired. So what was there about Buggy for Shanks to like?

…maybe it was just a physical thing. Shanks had once kissed a red nose-less Buggy, so he felt safe assuming there was something about his body that attracted Shanks. Enough that Shanks wanted him even with his nose? Despite his personality?

Buggy floated his way back to the room he was sharing with Galdino. The mirror was still there, sitting on the bedside table. He used it to inspect himself, head to toe, trying to look at himself with a stranger’s eye.

Galdino came in while he was trying to get a good angle on his back and backside without chop-chopping himself. “There you are,” he said, with a scolding undertone Silvers Rayleigh had often taken with Buggy, as if he was a student falling short of expectations no one had bothered to tell him about. “Dinner’s being served in ten, and I hear it’s either fish the crew caught on our way into port or Sea King loin.”

Buggy’s face scrunched up reflexively. He was so tired of eating Sea King. Every meal in Impel Down had involved the stuff, since it was easy for the guards to get their hands on during the Blue Gorillas’ daily swim. All the briny, fishy stink of the ocean, but with a tough and gamy flesh when left uncured, truly the worst of both worlds. And of course Blue Gorillas were no chefs, so the meat had always been served unseasoned and overcooked.

“Yeah,” Galdino said, “so we’d better get there fast.” He took in Buggy’s posture and frowned. “What are you doing?”

“I—” Buggy thought about trying to explain himself. As ever, Shanks was beyond explanation… but Galdino would be a more objective judge, and it wasn’t like he didn’t already know. He’d been the one to put the idea in Buggy’s head in the first place!

Having to ask was so embarrassing, though.

Grimacing, Buggy asked, “Am I attractive?”

Galdino stared silently at Buggy for a long moment, wax dripping off the end of his fancy topknot and down his face.

Face hot, Buggy gritted out, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Oh, no, of course not! I just—” Galdino ran a hand over his face, wiping away a thin layer of wax. “Isn’t it kind of late in the honeypot process for you to be worrying about something like that?”

Buggy squinted. “The honeywhat process?”

“The.” Galdino paused. He looked very closely at Buggy, who flushed a little under such scrutiny. Galdino pressed his hands together like someone about to start praying, took a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. “How about I tell you what I thought was happening, and then you can tell me what you think is going on.”

Hm. Ominous. Buggy nodded agreement.

“Okay.” Galdino gestured between himself and Buggy with his folded hands. “Yesterday, I told you Red-Haired Shanks was interested in you, and warned you to not be so obvious about rejecting him, for all our sakes. This morning, you spent breakfast together, behaving in a way I’ve heard described as friendly, companionable, and ‘weirdly nice, for that guy.’ This culminated in you… asking to spend the day with him tomorrow?” Galdino gave Buggy a wide-eyed, nervous look. “Have I gotten anything wrong so far?”

“No…?”

“Great. So. I take it by your confusion that this was not an attempt to take my advice a little too far in the other direction, and get Red-Haired Shanks to do us some kind of favor in exchange for your affections?”

Buggy blinked. “What?!”

“Yes, clearly not,” Galdino muttered to himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he said, “But then what are you doing, encouraging him like this?”

“I’m not encouraging—it’s Shanks!” When this did not seem to explain anything to Galdino, Buggy threw his hands out, searching for words. “He’s not—I wouldn’t have to put myself on display like a carnival prize to get something from him, he’d just give it to me! He’d give just about anything to just about anyone, that’s the kind of guy he is.”

“And you… don’t want anything from him,” Galdino concluded, eyes narrowed.

Buggy rolled his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to all the treasure hidden away on this ship, but even if Shanks was willing to give it to me I’m pretty sure he’d get outvoted by the rest of his crew. He’s already given us safe passage. He won’t rescind that offer. What else is there?”

“…right.” Galdino stared at Buggy, expression calculating. “Then why are you spending the day with him?”

“Do you have to say it like that?” He made it sound so… indecent, like two people couldn’t spend time together without it being inherently risqué. (Granted, Buggy had just been wondering whether Shanks was—he viciously shoved that thought down. Not the time!) “Look, Galdino, I asked Shanks to meet privately tomorrow because I want to talk to him about stuff I don’t need other people overhearing. That’s all. He’s the one who turned it into a full day thing.”

“And you didn’t argue against it!” Galdino sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “This is what I meant when I said you were encouraging him. You ask for an hour, he offers a day, and you agree to the day? You should have held your ground. If you had more than an hour of things to talk about, you would have asked for more time to begin with. What else is he supposed to think you want to do with that additional time, but…?” Galdino raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Heat slowly rose in Buggy’s cheeks as this sunk in. “We—we could just spend that time… catching up,” he said, voice weak; he didn’t fully believe what he was saying. “It’s been a long time since we’ve really seen each other. More than twenty years, a lot’s happened.” Including things that it seemed like Shanks might want to happen again. Buggy’s hand went to his mouth unconsciously.

“A lot you want him knowing about? The man—the Emperor—you yelled at right after he stopped a war dead in its tracks, and then saw no problem with bluntly asking him to take all of us on his ship five minutes later? The man you seem to alternate between hissing at and laughing with whenever people see you together?” Galdino rubbed at his temple. “I just don’t understand what—” Galdino froze, staring at Buggy. “Oh.”

Buggy blinked, dropping his hand. “What?”

Galdino turned to stare into the middle distance. “Okay,” he said faintly. “I can work with this.”

“Work with what?” Buggy said, starting to get annoyed.

“Yeah,” Galdino said, nodding to himself with increasing enthusiasm. “This will work. I mean, if anyone else tried it I’d call them insane, but in your case—well, how often can you be this certain going in? You know he’s interested, and you’re going to be alone with him for a full day. If you want him, you’ve basically got him.”

Buggy burst into flames. “I—” he croaked out. “What?”

Galdino’s eyes narrowed. “…you do want him, right?”

Nothing but static between his ears, Buggy threw open the door to their room. “Hey, didn’t you say dinner was happening soon? We should go! I am so sick of Sea King, you have no idea—”

“Buggy!”

Buggy jogged down the stairs, wondering aloud how Lucky Roux might have prepared the fish his crew had caught—braised? roasted? So many delicious possibilities!

Sticking his head out the door after Buggy, Galdino called out, “Do you even know what you want?” He let out an exasperated sound when Buggy picked up his pace and started waxing rhapsodic about fried fish still hot from the oil.

It would’ve been nice if Buggy could forget that conversation along with the rest of the day, but no luck. Long after Galdino fell asleep, an anticipatory pair of wax plugs in his ears, Buggy laid awake with those words running through his head. Lined up next to the other things he’d said about Shanks, it sounded pretty damning.

They all say the two of you got up close and personal, and Red-Hair’s been red-faced ever since.

Fact is he’s an Emperor. One who’s taken an interest in you.

If you want him, you’ve basically got him.

…you do want him, right?

Buggy muffled a frustrated groan into his pillow.

At least dinner had been delicious: perfectly fried whitefish in a delicate batter that tore at the slightest hint of pressure, letting steaming-hot juices burst free and burn your tongue, served with fried potatoes and vinegar and a creamy sour pickle sauce. Messy, but well worth getting to the kitchen early for.

That showing up early meant he didn’t run into any of the still-busy senior officers of the Red Force… well, that was just good luck.

“‘Getting ahead in life requires either good luck or good planning, and Buggy, you’re not much of a planner.’” Buggy grumbled to himself. “Shows what you know, Mr. Rayleigh… my luck’s not much to speak of either, yet here I am, getting ahead.” And who knew? Maybe tomorrow, he’d get—

Face burning, Buggy refused to complete the thought.

He also refused to consider the question that thought brought to mind: was that all he wanted from Shanks?

Or its corollary: was that all Shanks wanted from him?

Chapter Text

Buggy slept poorly, and woke before the sun was even above the horizon, let alone high enough in the sky to bother him. He stayed in bed, staring up through that window into the gloom of night, and told himself he wasn't nervous. That it was stupid to be nervous. That this wasn’t a big deal. A day with Shanks, what was that next to all the shit he’d been through lately?

It wasn’t working.

And the reason was so stupid, which might be the most infuriating part. Was he nervous about being alone with Shanks, his old rival? Shanks, his old friend? No, of course not. And he wasn’t nervous about being alone with Red-Haired Shanks, Emperor of the Sea, though he might be one of the only guests on the ship who wasn’t. But Shanks, a person who’d unknowingly kissed Buggy once, and Shanks, a person who all evidence suggested was interested in kissing Buggy now… that guy scared him.

That was the truth Buggy had been fighting so hard not to realize, ever since he’d seen Shanks again: the thought of kissing Shanks wouldn’t leave his mind, and it scared him.

It had been a long time since anything about Shanks scared him.

At first, watching from around a corner as Shanks trained with swords and blossomed beautifully under Roger’s praise, Buggy hadn’t understood what he was feeling. His heart racing, his breath growing short, sweat beading at his brow—he’d stared, confused, until his instinct kicked in. The instinct, which had saved Buggy’s life a dozen times over by that point, which Rayleigh would later call hypervigilance, told him that he felt like this when he was afraid. That he must be afraid of Shanks.

But that was ridiculous, he’d thought, the first time he ever challenged that instinct. Why? Shanks would never hurt him.

Oh, he would never mean to. But how could the crew ever care for Buggy half as much as Shanks, when he wasn’t even a quarter as good as him? What kind of legacy would Buggy be to the crew of the future king of the pirates, compared to Shanks?

His instinct had set him on the wrong path that day, Buggy knew that now—Shanks hadn’t given a damn about that legacy, though he’d’ve been able to fulfill it without even breaking a sweat—but at the time, it had seemed the only way to survive. If he stayed as close to Shanks as he could stand, if the legacy was Shanks and Buggy, not Shanks and Buggy… soon he’d realized he didn’t even need to work at it, that Shanks was happy to have Buggy at his side. Shanks’ arm flung casually across Buggy’s shoulder had made the queasy feeling in his stomach worsen and then ease, proof that Shanks was very capable of hurting him, and never ever would.

(Well, he’d been half right about that.)

Thinking back on that time made Buggy want to curl up into a ball and die. Fear? Burning up inside watching Shanks smile—had he really thought that was how fear felt? How he hadn’t seen those feelings for what they were—well, Buggy could grant himself a little leniency there. It had been his first time. And, as one small upside to the whole mess, the way Shanks had eventually, inevitably hurt him had stripped him of all power over Buggy. No more queasy stomachs, no more racing hearts. Just misery, and anger, and disgust.

Until now. Now, Buggy was facing both that old “fear” and the real deal, because this, this was—

Buggy took some deep breaths and told himself none of it mattered. They were just going to catch up. Buggy would find out what really happened to Shanks’ arm. He’d learn a bit about what Shanks had gotten up to and where he'd been. They’d gossip about Rayleigh. Maybe Shanks would have questions of his own, and Buggy would… probably lie through his teeth, honestly, but Shanks would be expecting that. They’d find somewhere to eat, and Buggy would get wasted on Shanks’ dime, and a good time would be had by all.

There would be no talk of (or acts of) kissing.

Unless…

Buggy smacked himself across the head. No! No unlesses! There would be no kissing.

Dawn was beginning to make herself known when Buggy gave in and got up. He dressed, considered the Marine jacket and hat he’d stolen and rebranded, and decided against them. Despite what the ex-prisoners had said yesterday, this wasn’t going to be a conversation between captains. If anything, this was going to be a conversation between former pirate apprentices, and to Buggy that meant no symbols of higher office.

But this left Buggy with either the worn shirt of his prison uniform or the off-duty shirt he’d stolen from the Marines, neither of which he was particularly wild about. The stripes, which would have to be paired with either plain white or muddy brown pants, didn’t come close to Buggy’s preferred levels of flashiness. He wasn’t about to go begging Shanks’ quartermaster for clothes, though—that could only lead to Buggy wearing something embarrassing from the Red Force’s lost and found. Given the things Shanks and his crew wore willingly, their idea of embarrassment must be excruciating.

Ah, well. Shanks never wore anything but that old salt-crusted cotton shirt anyway, Buggy wouldn’t look that weird next to him.

He considered himself in the mirror. The small smudges and imperfections he’d noticed yesterday were still there, of course, along with some new ones. Something had really fucked up the lower half of his crossbones, they were barely visible past the shadows under his eyes.

He didn’t feel good about leaving it like that.

He felt worse about caring how he looked today.

While he was fussing—and hating himself for fussing—something struck him over the back of his head. Buggy spun around to see Galdino squinting at him from the bed, hand outstretched from throwing... some kind of wax stick? Buggy picked it up, surprised at how little it weighed.

“Don’ squeeze it,” Galdino mumbled. Buggy’s hand flexed in spiteful reflex, and he realized the wax was stiff and porous. “Isn’t perfect, but it’ll strip most kinds of makeup off.” He laid down, tugging the blanket back up, and said, “If you wanna try and reapply it I can’t guarantee it’ll work, but I can make it softer and concentrate the pigment into a small point.”

Buggy considered this. Probably not worth the effort, he decided, starting to scrape the lower half of the crossbones off his face. The upper half was solid enough it wouldn't look too unbalanced. It might even seem intentional, like his eyes were meant to represent the lower knobs of bone. Yeah, Buggy thought, scraping the smudged corners of his lips to sharp points, this was a halfway decent look.

“Thanks,” he offered, as much of a white flag for yesterday’s… behavior… as Buggy was willing to offer. Galdino let out a vaguely agreeable grunt. “How’d you learn to do that?”

Galdino sat up and rubbed at his eyes, resigned to being awake. “You met Mr. 2.” He shrugged. “We fought sometimes, and I learned by accident that my wax could do similar things with his makeup that I’d already learned to do with paint.”

“Well, it's impressive,” Buggy admitted, tossing the crayon back to Galdino. “Better than I could've hoped for without my special makeup-removing solvents.”

“You’re welcome,” Galdino said, letting the crayon melt away until he was left with a reddish smear on his fingertips. “Now. I have a feeling you won’t want to answer me, but I’m going to ask anyway: having slept on it, do you know what you’re doing with Red-Haired Shanks?”

Buggy grimaced, crossing his arms. He should’ve seen this coming. “No.”

Galdino sighed. He put a hand to his temple. “Do you know what you want to be doing with him?”

Face going warm, Buggy turned away. He wanted to say “nothing,” but somehow Galdino was a person he couldn’t convincingly lie to, so he snapped, “No!”

“Well, at least you’re somewhat self-aware about it,” Galdino muttered. “Okay then.”

Buggy spun around to stare at Galdino. “‘Okay then?’” he repeated.

“Yeah.” Yawning, Galdino said, “Having slept on it myself, I’ve realized you were right, Red-Haired Shanks isn’t going to strand us in the middle of nowhere because you refuse to put out. So I’ve decided this doesn't concern me anymore. Good luck, or whatever.” And with that, he laid down and went back to sleep.

Baffled, Buggy stared blankly at the back of Galdino’s head for a minute. Well, that was a turnabout. He told himself he was glad—he hadn’t wanted anyone bothering him about Shanks in the first place—but couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. Which was stupid; Galdino had said from the start his interest was entirely one of self-preservation. But a part of Buggy had still thought he’d found a real friend in these bizarre circumstances.

A soft knock at the door distracted Buggy from his thoughts. He chop-chopped an eye to secretly put it to the window, and immediately ruined any hopes for subtlety when he spat out an incredulous, “Shanks?!”

“Hey.” Shanks gave the eye at the window a quick smile before Buggy threw open the door to gape at him more directly. “Sorry, I know it’s early, but I heard you talking so I didn’t think I would be disturbing you. We never decided when to meet yesterday—is now a good time?”

“I…” Lost for words, Buggy stared at Shanks. He wasn’t wearing his usual ratty, half-buttoned shirt of cheap white cotton. Under a black, hooded cape (of course he had more than one) he wore a blue button-up (left unbuttoned, of course) patterned with white lilies. It had the kind of shapeless fit that suggested mass-market origins… a tourist shop, knowing Shanks’ interests. And it had, sometime in its recent history, been ironed.

And Shanks’ hair looked like it had seen a comb this morning.

It was barely light out.

Shanks was eager.

And scared as he was, Buggy was… not unaffected. He didn’t let his eyes linger on the full length of Shanks’ chest, but even a glance was enough to make Buggy see the truth. However complex his feelings towards Shanks as a person were, Shanks’ body evoked a very simple reaction: a desire to touch.

“Something wrong?” Shanks asked.

Buggy huffed a sigh. “It’s stupid.” When Shanks looked earnestly at him, he rolled his eyes and said, “I thought you were going to be in that same old shirt of yours, so I wasn’t bothered about being stuck in these unflashy clothes, but… you almost look nice.”

Shanks smiled at this backhanded compliment, and Buggy lost track of the point he’d been trying to make, distracted by the curve of that mouth. His upper lip was bare—had he shaved? That thought threw Buggy into a spiral of whats and whys so profound he stopped processing audiovisual information. It wasn’t until the expectant silence hit that Buggy realized he’d been so distracted he hadn’t heard a word Shanks said.

“Uh, what?”

Shanks’ smile went a little wider. Ah fuck, he’d noticed. “I said, you could always borrow something of mine? I think we’re still about the same size… on top, at least,” he added, glancing down at Buggy’s waist.

Buggy thought about attempting to squeeze into the rose-patterned cropped pants Shanks was wearing and snort-laughed. Yeah, they were definitely not the same pants size anymore. “Do you even own anything I would wear?”

Shanks pouted. “What, don’t you think this is a little flashy?” He gestured to his outfit, comprising four entire colors and two floral patterns.

Buggy shook his head, fighting down a smile. “A little, maybe. But I’m never anything less than 100% flashy if I can help it.”

Shanks jerked his head to the side. “Come check out my wardrobe, then. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

Buggy raised an eyebrow. Would he, now? “We’ll see about that.”

He stepped out of the room, and before he could close the door found it slamming shut behind him, a faint trace of wax bulging around the frame before disappearing. Buggy’s face went hot. So Galdino hadn’t fallen back to sleep immediately after all.

Voice shaking with laughter, Shanks said, “Shall we?” and led the way.

The wardrobe wasn’t bad—sure, Shanks had a lot of basically identical white cotton shirts, but there were a dozen exceptions that did surprise Buggy—but the real treat was getting a peak at Shanks’ rooms. He still had the messy habits of their childhood, Buggy was delighted to see, dirty clothes and empty bottles strewn across the floor. The furnishings were beautiful, and hand-carved to fit the ship, if Buggy wasn’t mistaken. The bed—Buggy didn’t look at the bed.

Buggy’s hands lingered over a few locked drawers—Shanks had seen how long Buggy was going to take and wandered off, foolishly—but there wasn’t any point to breaking in. That rubber brat had reminded him of Shanks for a reason: the things he called “treasure” didn’t have any shine or value to them at all. If Shanks did have treasures hidden away, they wouldn’t be anything Buggy could sell. They would be sappy in context and meaningless without it—like the hat, given to Shanks as a gift and no doubt given to Monkey D. Luffy for similar reasons.

No, he’d best do what he’d come in here to do.

Most of the flashier shirts were floral patterned. It seemed to be a recurring thing for Shanks, which was all well and good—if you found something you liked, why not stick with it?—but it wouldn’t do for Buggy. They wouldn’t literally be matching, but if they were both in florals it would appear all too well-coordinated for Buggy’s comfort.

Then, digging into the very back of the wardrobe, Buggy found a shirt that made him smile. And really, after yesterday, how could he not?

He strode out of Shanks’ rooms with a smirk sharpening the corners of his lips, wearing an orange button-down (left unbuttoned because they weren’t quite as close in size as Shanks had thought) decorated in a pattern of skewered fishcakes and konjac. He was a walking, talking pot of oden.

Shanks rounded the corner, spotted him, and grinned. “I’m not going to say I was hoping you’d pick that one, because if I do you’ll probably go back and change—” Buggy scowled, ignoring the sudden impulse to do just that. “—but that is one of my favorites. And orange looks good on you.”

“Everything looks good on me,” Buggy said snidely, walking ahead, not letting himself read anything into that comment. Or the glance up and down Shanks gave him after he said this, or the little nod of agreement Shanks made as they left the ship.

“What’s that?” he asked instead. Shanks was holding his arm at an odd angle—hiding something behind his back? For a moment, Buggy was struck with the awful thought that Shanks might have gotten him flowers.

“Breakfast,” Shanks said with a grin, bringing his arm around to reveal a pair of rolls, one fruit- and cream-filled, the other stuffed with—

Buggy gasped. “Is that a hot dog?”

“Close!” Shanks let Buggy snatch up the second roll, which on closer inspection was holding a breakfast sausage, sandwiched between two thin lengths of egg, and drizzled with—Buggy dabbed at the sauce with a finger to get a confirmatory taste—some of the porridge syrup from breakfast yesterday. “I asked Lucky Roux to put something together that would be easy to carry and eat one-handed, and he thought you’d like this.” Looking impressed, Shanks said, “I guess you do.”

Buggy blinked. Half the sandwich already eaten, the rest shoved so far into his mouth he couldn’t fully close his jaw… yeah, no shit he liked it. Easing off the sausage, Buggy said, “If I thought I could steal him from you, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Shanks laughed. “Sorry, Roux’s been with me nearly twenty years now, I don’t think he’s leaving for love or money.”

“Too bad,” Buggy muttered, attention back on his breakfast. It was stupidly good, sweet and savory and greasy all at once. “How’d he know, though? The syrup, sure, I had that yesterday, but the roll? This specific shape?"

Shanks, mid-bite, smiled a little sheepishly. Licking cream from the corner of his lip, he said, “Ah, that one’s on me. Roux asked if I remembered any of your old preferences or allergies, and I mentioned your obsession with cheap boardwalk hot dogs.”

So the chef wasn’t a mind-reader. That was a small bit of comfort. Shanks remembering Buggy’s favorite food was… something else altogether. “Well… thanks.”

Shanks smiled like Buggy had lavished him with compliments, instead of barely managing two words of gratitude. “I’m just glad you like it.”

Buggy had assumed Shanks knew this island, maybe even this specific town, pretty well, but the ease with which he led them out of the dockyards proved it. They went south, which didn’t seem to be particularly busy at this hour—that honor went to the docks themselves, with workers wheeling crates and rolling barrels up to the side of the Red Force and the handful of other ships in dock.

South was… just beach? Well, it was early, maybe whatever sights there were to see in town weren’t open yet. A walk on the beach, though, that was a bit…

Buggy told himself to stop thinking about it.

As they finished off their rolls, they came upon a little shack with an “OPEN” sign hung out front. Shanks spoke familiarly with the proprietress, who handed him a steaming paper cup of pale green tea in exchange for a few coins. He offered it to Buggy, who wrinkled his nose at the vegetal smell and interrogated the woman about what else she had. The list wasn’t long, but it included drinking chocolate, which Buggy didn’t get to indulge himself in too often, so he made Shanks get him two cups.

The bittersweet taste lingered deliciously on Buggy’s lips. Definitely the right call.

Shanks walked in silence the whole time Buggy was drinking, which he pretended didn’t bother him. Shanks being quiet, being contemplative, wasn’t totally out of the ordinary. Shanks contemplatively watching Buggy was, just a little.

“So,” Buggy said, breaking the silence. “How did you lose that arm?”

Shanks blinked, coming to a halt. He huffed a tired little laugh. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“My first guess was that Whitebeard cut it off, and my second was that you were dumb enough to let a Sea King eat it,” Buggy said dryly, staring out at the ocean with his arms crossed. The sun glinting off the waves made his eyes hurt. “How much worse can the truth be?”

“…well, you know Luffy, right?”

After a deranged moment of thinking the rubber kid had eaten Shanks’ arm, Buggy put it together and sighed. “It’s not enough that you gave him your hat, you lost your arm for him too?”

Shanks smiled. “I said you weren’t gonna like it.”

“Of course I don’t like it!” Buggy fumed. “I hate that kid! He’s so—” Making a strangling motion with his hands, Buggy yelled wordlessly. “I can’t believe people still go around talking like that!”

“Like our captain, you mean?”

Buggy hissed, “Yes!” He rubbed a hand across his face. “I really couldn’t believe it. Wearing that hat, saying those things, it was like I was a kid again! Who’s that naive anymore? We’ve seen what happens to people who talk like that.”

Shanks nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s why you tried to kill him at Roguetown.”

Buggy started to nod, then froze up. “You, ah… you heard about that?”

“I’ve talked about Luffy to… a lot of people over the years,” Shanks said, a wry smile on his face. The breeze that came in with the tide grabbed at his hair, tossing it back from his face. “Some of them like to bring me news about him, when they can.” Cocking an eyebrow at Buggy, Shanks said, “Including newspaper articles about freak lightning strikes that burn down the execution platform famous for hosting the Pirate King in his final moments.”

Buggy sulked silently. That stupid lightning…

“But yeah, it was for Luffy’s sake,” Shanks said easily. “He was just a kid, and he’d eaten a Devil Fruit that was in my possession. Even if I didn’t care for him, I’d’ve still felt responsible. He was tossed into a Sea King’s hunting grounds, and I got there too late to scare it off. It was my arm, or Luffy’s whole body.” Shanks shrugged. “Not much of a choice.”

Buggy looked at Shanks, staring out to sea and remembering that moment. For all the lightness of his words, his expression looked heavy. “You have bad luck with Devil Fruit users, huh,” he said at last.

Shanks smiled at him, a sad little wrinkle by his eye the only sign he wasn’t perfectly content. “No worse than I deserve.”

Buggy stared. That almost sounded like Shanks had accepted responsibility for what had happened to Buggy. Maybe being responsible for someone else eating a Devil Fruit had put things into perspective for him.

“Is it my turn now?” Shanks asked, the sort of cheeky tone in his voice that he used to pull out when he wanted to pretend everything was fine and draw attention away from how he was really feeling. Buggy was surprised to find he still recognized it. He’d’ve thought Shanks would have less obvious tells by now.

Buggy rolled his eyes. “I guess it’s only fair.” Gesturing dramatically at Shanks, he added, “But I reserve the right to refuse to answer! If you think you can get me to reveal my deepest secrets this way, you’ll have to think again!”

Shanks chuckled. “What deepest secrets?” Before Buggy could start to sweat, or sputter out some kind of non-answer, he said, “Anyway, I’m not interested in that. I want to know about your crew.”

“My crew?”

“Yeah, what are they like? The only one mentioned by name in that article was ‘Iron Mace’ Alvida, and it sounded like she’d been a captain in her own right before you met. Are your crews allied or merged? What are your goals?”

Buggy blinked, thrown by this line of questioning. What did Shanks care for the personalities and interests of an above-average East Blue pirate crew that had gotten in over their heads after entering the Grand Line? But the way he was staring expectantly at Buggy, it was undeniable that Shanks did care. “Ah—Alvida and I are allies. At first it was just because she also had a grudge against Strawhat, but we’re both interested in finding Captain John’s treasure, so…”

Shanks smiled fondly. “You’re still after that one, huh?”

“Damn right I am! I never give up on a treasure hunt!” Buggy insisted, raising a triumphant fist in the air. “I even—” Buggy cut himself off. He wasn’t stupid enough to reveal to another pirate captain that he’d been given acquired an important lead on a treasure hunt, not when he was still technically in that captain’s custody. Rubbing a finger under his nose smugly, he said, “Well, let’s just say I’m getting closer to finding it all the time.”

“And the rest of your crew share that interest?”

“Of course! We’re all greedy, treasure-loving pirates at heart!” Buggy went on to tell Shanks a few stories of his crew’s successes—maybe a little exaggerated, sure, but who did that hurt? So the treasure chest Richie had dug up at Mohji’s command hadn’t really been full of priceless gemstones, he’d still found it! That was impressive to Buggy, and he wanted other people to feel just as impressed. If he had to twist the truth to get that reaction, so be it.

Shanks was still smiling when Buggy got tired of bragging about his men. “I’m glad,” he said. “I remember how much you wanted to have a crew that loved treasure the same way you do… I’m glad you were able to find one.”

“I—” Buggy stuttered. He—had Shanks just wanted to know if Buggy was happy with his life and his crew as it was? Face hot, Buggy paced down the beach, ignoring Shanks calling after him. This fucking guy. How was Buggy supposed to behave around him, acting like this?

Shanks caught up to Buggy a pace from the wet sand that marked the highest point the tide had reached. They stood in silence for a moment, watching the water ebb and flow, Buggy inching backwards when progressive waves made it clear high tide was yet to come.

Quietly, Shanks asked, “Was that all you had to ask me?”

Buggy glanced sideways at Shanks. Had he imagined that disappointed tone? Shanks’ face certainly didn’t look disappointed. It didn’t look like much of anything, though; he was hiding his feelings again, but behind a casual interest instead of a careless smile. Why? What did Shanks have to hide?

“I have plenty of questions.” Buggy lifted a hand to hover next to Shanks’ left eye. “I could ask about these scars, but I think I know how you got them.” There were only so many weapons that used three blades set so close together, and only one person who used them that Buggy could think of who was good enough to get at Shanks with one.

Shanks smiled, a forced little thing. “Ah, yeah, that…”

“When I saw them the first time, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t have let that happen!” Buggy laughed; Shanks’ face was frozen in surprise. “Yeah, stupid, right? Like I could’ve gotten between you and Teach. Like I would’ve wanted to.” Buggy shrugged. “Still thought it.” Giving into the impulse, he pressed forward, tracing his thumb down the line of the outermost scar. It was rough, a sharp-edged divot in Shanks’ face. Unnatural, especially on someone like him. “It’s weird, seeing proof you can actually get hurt.”

Shanks’ eyes had fluttered shut; they opened at these last words. “Buggy…”

Stepping back, Buggy jabbed a finger at Shanks, hair swinging wildly behind him. “Which is why I’m not asking any more questions like that! It’s bad enough thinking about all the shit that just happened, I don’t want to think about other bad times.” He glared at Shanks, daring him to push back.

Shanks just nodded. “Okay, Buggy.” He stood there, letting the tide flow between his toes, waiting patiently for Buggy’s next question.

If only he’d had something in mind. Scrambling for one and coming up blank, Buggy went with the easy option and threw Shanks’ own question back at him: “What about your crew? Who’d you pick up first, the first mate?”

Shanks grinned. “Well, technically,” he began, and Buggy let him go on, hardly listening, satisfied by that easy, real smile.

Chapter Text

With heavier topics taken off the table, the flow of conversation became smooth and easy. Shanks asked about Buggy’s crew, his recent travels, his plans for the future; Buggy asked about the best places Shanks had been, who he’d met. At Buggy’s request, Shanks devoted a full twenty minutes to a detailed description of his meeting with Rayleigh; to Buggy’s delight, it turned out Rayleigh was in Sabaody because Shakuyaku, the former Amazon empress, lived there. Buggy had always been impressed by her, if a little privately judgy of her taste in men, so hearing that the two of them had semi-retired together made him smile.

As did the revelation that Shanks had first seen a wanted poster for Buggy the Clown—his earliest one, actually, before he’d perfected the crossbones and had still been experimenting with lip tints—when Rayleigh pulled a copy out that day. “He keeps an eye on all the newspapers, from the four big seas and the Grand Line alike,” Shanks explained, digging his toes into the sand. (Buggy had gotten tired of his push-pull relationship with the tides and insisted they move further up the beach.) “I think he’s found and kept a copy of every one of our bounties.”

Buggy tried not to be obvious about how much that meant, but he had never been good at holding back the waterworks when he got emotional. Sniffing thickly, he said, “That stupid old man… your bounty’s gone up so many times over the years without the picture ever looking different! What a waste of his space.”

One of Shanks’ eyebrows went up—probably, Buggy realized a moment later, at the implication that Buggy had also been keeping track of Shanks’ bounties. Ah, well, in for a penny… “Seriously! It’s bad design!” Buggy insisted. “If the only changes someone like me ever noticed are that you grew that shitty little beard—”

“Shitty?” Shanks pouted, running his thumb along his jawline. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

“It’s worse without the mustache,” Buggy said bluntly. Shanks played up his shock, gasping and grabbing at his heart like an elderly man.

Buggy rolled his eyes. “As I was saying: if all I ever noticed was the beard and that your hat disappeared at some point, your average citizen’s not going to realize the Marines have released a new poster and the bounty went up!” Jabbing a thumb brazenly at his own face, Buggy said, “At least I had something new going on each time.”

Shanks cocked his head at Buggy. “About that… do you change your makeup style so often for fun, or are you still searching for the perfect look?”

Buggy scoffed. “There’s no such thing as perfection when it comes to art, or fashion,” he said. “There’s just advancing your craft. Every time I change my look up, I’m incorporating newer and flashier techniques, and better supplies. The makeup I had access to fifteen, even ten years ago would never have lasted a day in Impel Down, let alone weeks.”

“That’s true,” Shanks said thoughtfully, hand on his chin. “The stuff you have these days is much—” He cut himself off, glancing over Buggy’s shoulder. Buggy turned to see a cluster of men in ragged prison uniforms standing maybe forty feet away, staring at them and then glancing away awkwardly when they met Buggy’s eye.

“I told them not to bother me today,” Buggy grumbled, giving the group a halfhearted glare. They visibly quaked, knees knocking, but neither moved nor explained themselves.

“I guess our presence is interfering with their shore leave,” Shanks said, slipping back into his sandals.

Looking past the men revealed the beach had gotten crowded while Buggy wasn’t paying attention—save for a fifty-foot ring of emptiness centered on him and Shanks. These men had only approached them because there wasn’t anywhere else to be. Sighing, Buggy stood up, brushing sand off the seat of his pants.

“Lead the way, then,” he said grimly.

With a polite smile and a wave to the former prisoners, Shanks walked back up the beach. Buggy gave them a glare, and a threatening slice-your-throat gesture (made more emphatic by the way Buggy separated his neck as he sliced) to encourage their silence before following Shanks further inland. The terrain got a bit jungle-like as they went on, but there were neatly trodden paths between the trees. It was a civilized corner of nature, and Buggy found he didn’t mind walking through it with just Shanks and his questions for company, even when those questions started getting a bit specific for Buggy’s tastes. (What did Shanks need to know about his plans after he found Captain John’s treasure, anyway? Was he trying to go after Buggy’s next prize while he was still busy with the current one?)

It was the middle of the lunch hour by the time their jungle path led them back into town, which was almost suspiciously convenient timing. Buggy glanced at Shanks, trying to figure out if he’d planned this or was just aimlessly wandering. Well, either way he’d better lead them somewhere soon—Buggy was hungry! He wanted to eat the kind of food he couldn’t get back on the ship—nothing a typical chef in a typical kitchen could manage. He wanted something that involved a deep fryer, or another equally specialized device. Something that would be too much of a hassle to make on a ship. Something…

“Hey!” Shanks turned to grab Buggy’s attention, pointing at a yatai on the opposite street corner. “What about that?”

Buggy spotted the word written in bold white letters on slate gray cloth and started to laugh. “What are we, on a themed vacation or something?”

“You’re the one who put the idea in my head!” Shanks said defensively, grinning. “I know it’s out of season, but…”

“No, you’re right, we have to,” Buggy said, and led them to the oden-ya. “I’m just going to look like I’m obsessed with the stuff, is all.”

Ducking under the bamboo noren curtains, they found themselves in a cozy space, with three stools set up along a polished wooden table the same length as the cooktop. A gorilla mink stood behind the partitioned oden pot, rotating skewers of fishcake in their niches within the steaming broth. He glanced up at their entrance, a friendly customer service smile spreading across his face.

“Welcome! Looking for oden this afternoon, or just something to drink?” He gestured to one side, where beautiful little sake flasks and other bottles of alcohol were arranged on shelves that took up the whole side wall of the cart. “I’d be happy to warm a flask of sake up for you on the stove if you’d like.”

“We’re looking for both, thanks,” Shanks said warmly, stepping up to the counter. “I don’t suppose any of your sake is sourced from Wano?”

The mink wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. “I may have some in storage, but that stuff tend to run a little pricier, given… well, if you’re asking for it, you must know.”

“Of course you have expensive tastes in booze and nothing else,” Buggy said with a smirk, bent down to inspect the sake that was actually meant for sale. “Come on, look, they’ve got some West Blue stuff, you were always a sucker for your home ocean.”

“Oh?” Shanks leaned over Buggy to get a better look at the stock, and a prickle of heat went up Buggy’s spine. “Ooh, I do like that stuff. But I really had my heart set on something from Wano…” Turning back to the mink, he said, “Sorry to trouble you, but can you bring out what you have from Wano? I promise the price isn’t an issue, and I won’t have any problem drinking a flask of each.” The mink ducked around back without complaint.

“More like a couple flasks of each,” Buggy muttered, but he didn’t mean it cruelly. Shanks liked a drink, he always had—and rumor said the last time he saw Whitebeard before all this he’d matched him cup for cup. Whitebeard-sized cups, too, which meant he had to have a crazy tolerance these days. Good for him. Buggy wasn’t quite as capable, but he could hold his liquor. He wouldn’t be any kind of ex-Roger Pirate if he couldn’t.

“Guilty,” Shanks said, singsongy, reaching over Buggy’s shoulder to snatch one of the larger bottles of shochu. “Can you grab a flask or two of the West Blue sake for me?”

Buggy rolled his eyes, grabbing two. “One of them’s for me.”

“We can share,” Shanks said mildly.

Buggy snorted. “If by ‘share’ you mean I get one cup and by the time I’ve finished it the flask is empty, sure, we can share.”

Shanks laughed. “Am I that bad?”

“You’re just too fast about it is all. I like to linger over a drink, really enjoy it.”

“Oh, you like to take your time, do you?” Shanks’ smile, already suggestively wide, spread wider still when this comment flustered Buggy.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” he snapped.

“No?”

Why do you sound disappointed, Buggy was tempted to ask—except no, no he wasn’t, he did not want to know why Shanks might be disappointed Buggy hadn’t intended to be suggestive. He had already decided he wasn’t going there. “I just mean you rush things a bit.”

“…do I?”

Once again feeling like Shanks was reading things into what he was saying, but this time not at all sure what deeper meaning Shanks was taking from his words, Buggy averted his eyes, setting the pair of sake flasks down in front of the stove top. “I know you like getting drunk, but there’s such a thing as pacing yourself, you know?”

Before Shanks could respond to this—with who knows what kind of misinterpretation of Buggy’s words this time—the mink returned, a crate of sake in flasks and jugs of various sizes in hand.

“Here we are!” With a soft grunt of effort, the mink set the crate down in front of Shanks. “Let me know if anything catches your eye.” He spotted the flasks of West Blue sake Buggy had set down and quickly made room in a pot of steaming water for them to sit and warm up. “Now, were any items looking especially appealing today?”

Buggy glanced sideways; Shanks was occupied with intently inspecting the sake. Well, if he wanted something special he could ask for it later. “Two bowls of whatever the chef recommends, for now.”

The gorilla nodded. “Coming right up!” And he was as good as his word, quickly throwing together a wide, shallow bowl of savory golden-brown broth with a skewer of fishcakes, an egg, and a few slices of daikon for each of them. It looked wonderful, warm and familiar, and it smelled even better.

Before Buggy could take a sip, Shanks had flung his arm across Buggy’s chest, blocking the spoonful of broth from reaching his mouth.

“Hang on,” Shanks said, weirdly serious. “You have to have this first.” He held out a small flask of Wano sake, tilted just far enough to encourage Buggy to grab a cup and accept the pour.

“Not warmed up?” Shanks expression didn’t so much as twitch. Buggy huffed. “Fine, fine... you and your expensive tastes.” He accepted the cup, swirled it for a moment to breathe in the aroma—they really did make it different in Wano; was it something in the water, or the rice?—and took a sip. Then blinked, goggled at the half-drunk cup, and slung back the rest with a warm floaty feeling in his chest.

Setting the cup down, he breathed, “Is that...?”

Shanks grinned. “Special pure rice brew.” He spun the flask around to reveal the maker’s mark. “From the Kuri region of Wano.”

Buggy snatched the flask away. Inspecting it, he said, “Seriously? It’s even from the same brewery?”

“And you wondered why I was so insistent.”

Buggy shook his head, laughing a little in disbelief, and poured Shanks a cup of the stuff. He glanced up at their host, politely not bothering them even though he had to be confused, and said, “This exact same sake was the first drink the two of us had, back when we were—what, twelve? Thirteen?”

“Something like that,” Shanks said, watching Buggy with a pleased smile. “Stolen out of Oden’s rooms on a dare—”

“—you’re the one who dared me!” Buggy snapped. Thinking back, he added, “And he must have let us take it, we weren’t sneaky enough at thirteen to get past Oden—”

“—oh, definitely,” Shanks agreed. “Bet he thought of it as a manly rite of passage, stealing your first drink from under the nose of your honored elders.”

Buggy snorted. “Definitely,” he echoed. Giving Shanks a look, he passed this flask along to the mink as well. “This stuff isn’t so fancy heating it will ruin the taste, right? Might as well try it the way it was meant to be had.”

“Of course,” the mink said with a gracious smile, adding the flask to the steaming pot on his stove. He watched the two of them dig into their bowls—delicious, of course—without comment, but as he carefully retrieved the first of the West Blue flasks from its bath he said, “Now, I haven’t thought about this in a long time, so I don’t quite recall… can you tell me, which of you is Shanks and which is Buggy?”

Buggy blinked dumbly up at the gorilla, his mouth full of radish. Next to him, Shanks was pulling a similar face.

Hastily swallowing his mouthful, Buggy cleared his throat and said, “You... know both of us by name? But not well enough to know us on sight?”

The gorilla smiled sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure until you brought up Oden. That’s Kozuki Oden, isn’t it? Which means the two of you must be Shanks and Buggy, they were the only other young people on the boat in all the stories I heard.”

“What stories?”

“‘The only other young people’…” Shanks lit up. “Do you know Dogstorm and Cat Viper?”

Buggy nearly smacked Shanks. “Seriously?! Not every mink knows each other, Shanks!”

“Heh, actually...” Buggy stared up at the gorilla mink in disbelief as he shrugged, making an embarrassed expression. “The truth is, I only learned how to prepare oden at Duke Dogstorm’s request.”

“Duke Dogstorm?” Shanks whistled. “Somebody’s moved up in the world.”

Buggy jabbed him in the side with a free-floating elbow. “I don’t want to hear that from you, Emperor Shanks!”

Shanks winced—an exaggerated gesture for the benefit of their audience—and leaned away from Buggy. “Oh, come on,” he whined, “it’s not like I meant to become an emperor or anything.”

“Oh, of course not,” Buggy said, rolling his eyes and shoving a piece of tsukune in his mouth. Eyes shut, he declared, “I’ll bet I can tell you exactly how it happened, too. You had a meal with some mediocre pirate crew and made friends. Some shitty Marines started abusing the hell out of them; they could’ve just arrested the crew, but they decided to torture them for their own amusement. Well, you could hardly let this abuse go unchallenged, could you? So naturally you had to step in, and sent the Marines running with their tails between their legs. And it was only natural that the pirate crew was thankful to you, but you never dreamed they’d all vow to follow you forever, forswearing their own flag in favor of yours. Not daring to call themselves true Red-Haired Pirates, of course, but Red-Haired Pirates adjacent.” Rolling his wrist, Buggy concluded, “And then that happened another twenty or thirty times, because you never learn.”

Opening one eye a crack, he glanced at Shanks. “How’d I do?”

Shanks, red-faced, his fist pressed to his mouth to hold back laughter, nodded weakly. “Well, you’re, uh... you’re not far off,” he wheezed out. Taking a drink to clear his throat and calm down, he sighed. “Though you make it sound like far more of a foregone conclusion than it felt when it was first happening to me.”

“That’s the benefit of an outside perspective,” Buggy said snippily. “And also hindsight.” Waving a hand in Shanks’ face, he said, “But enough about you!” Jabbing the pointer finger of that same hand at their host, Buggy said, “What’s this about you learning to make oden for Dogstorm?”

The gorilla mink smiled, his eyes wide, and Buggy suddenly remembered hearing once that gorillas didn’t actually smile, but instead bared their teeth as a threat against potential enemies. He pulled back his hand as casually as he could manage it.

“Do you really want to hear the story? I’m told I can be a bit long-winded,” the mink said, fishing one of the Wano flasks out of its water bath and offering it up.

“Yeah, let’s hear it!” Buggy said, pouring a cup for Shanks, then handing over the flask so Shanks could do the same for him. “I don’t know about Shanks but I haven’t heard anything about those two in years, I’m dying to hear what they’ve gotten up to.”

Closing his eyes, Buggy took a sip of the warmed Wano sake, not knowing Shanks was doing the same thing at the same time. They set down their cups and sighed in unpracticed unison. Suddenly aware of their double act, Buggy scowled at Shanks, who ignored him and made an encouraging gesture to their chef. “Please, go ahead. I’d love to hear news of Dogstorm and Cat Viper.”

A sad expression washed over the gorilla’s face. “I’m afraid I can only give you news of Duke Dogstorm.” At the looks on his guests’ faces, the gorilla threw out a hand and said, “Not to say—please don’t misunderstand! Lord Cat Viper still lives! It’s just that I have not met with him since he and Duke Dogstorm first returned to Zou. They... keep separate courts, and hours, and my service has always been to the day.”

A wrinkle appeared in Shanks’ brow. “They don’t talk anymore?”

“It always turns into a fight. Often one with devastating consequences for their surroundings.”

Buggy frowned. That didn’t sound right. Well, not the destruction—that sounded like those two—but fighting so badly they couldn’t even share waking hours... “What happened?”

The gorilla sighed. “As I understand it? Kozuki Oden died, and neither could forgive the other for failing to save him.” A moment later, he startled, giving Buggy a concerned look. “Are you hurt?”

Buggy blinked. Staring down at his hands, he realized he’d snapped his chopsticks in half. “I... no, I’m fine.” The gorilla carefully plucked the broken shards of wood out of Buggy’s grasp, along with a splinter or two that had tried to wedge their way into his palms. Thankfully the Chop-Chop fruit could handle any kind of stabbing, from needles up to legendary meito, so Buggy was actually fine.

While the gorilla disposed of the pieces of wood, Buggy clenched his jaw, feeling Shanks’ eyes on him. “I can hear you thinking.”

“…it makes sense,” he said quietly. “What else could come between those two but the loss of someone who was as important to them as Oden?”

Buggy shot Shanks a narrow look out of the corner of his eye. “Pretty sure I told you this morning that I was done talking about sad shit,” he warned, and Shanks raised his hand in a placating gesture. The gorilla confirmed that Buggy wasn’t hurt, pointed out the extra chopsticks sitting at his left hand, and at their insistence told his story while they returned to their meal.

Dogstorm’s court sounded like a sight worth seeing. Minks of countless animal appearances, musketeers and attendants! To think Oden’s retainer had retainers of his own now! And to think that he acted like a guy with such noble dignity, after the way he used to behave.

As the gorilla reached the end of his story—having made the closest thing to oden as could be produced with ingredients native to Zou, with Dogstorm pleased by the effort but quietly unsatisfied by the taste, the gorilla had left the court making a vow to learn the secrets of the oden-preparing arts, promising not to return until he was confident he would be able to put a true smile on the duke’s face—Buggy nudged Shanks in the side. He glanced at Buggy, a half-eaten skewer of fishcakes sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

“Can you believe,” Buggy said with a shit-eating grin, “that the noble, wounded Dogstorm this guy is talking about is the same one who tarred and feathered Mr. Rayleigh?”

Shanks nearly choked before starting to laugh. “How did I forget about that?!”

“I’m sorry, Duke Dogstorm did what?” the gorilla said incredulously, staring between the two of them.

“Wait, wait,” Shanks said, before Buggy could start to tell the story. “If we’re sharing stories of mutual friends, you have to share a drink with us too.” He grabbed a clean cup from a stack to one side and handed it over to the mink. Shanks gave Buggy a pleading look, and with a magnanimous smirk Buggy chop-chopped a hand to swipe another sake flask from the water bath and pour for both of them. “So—”

“Don’t you tell it!” Buggy snapped. With a grin and a wave of his hand, Shanks metaphorically turned over the reins to Buggy, and took the opportunity to return to his sake and his meal. “So,” Buggy said to the mink, “the first thing you need to understand about Dogstorm and Cat Viper is that they acted like respectful little attendants when Oden was around, but when it was just the four of us?” Glancing at Shanks, who was grinning around the skewer in his mouth, Buggy cackled. “They were just as bad as we were.”

Buggy went on to describe the prank in loving detail, alternating bites of fishcake with the reactions of the crew (mostly hysteria, especially from Roger) and the multiple attempts to blame the prank on someone else (Dogstorm nearly succeeded in pinning it all on Buggy, but forgot himself and corrected Rayleigh on where the tar had come from). Shanks followed this up with a reminder of another time the four of them had been absolute nightmares to the crew of the Oro Jackson, and the story Buggy told about that day brought their host to literal tears of laughter.

They went around like this for over an hour, topping off their bowls and drinks all the while, recalling old times with the golden burnish of nostalgia softening the edges, easing the hurts and offenses of youth. Gradually, the fear Buggy had been clinging to all day faded. It was hard to think that your petty childhood grudges mattered much when looked at from so far off, in so fond a way. It was easy to smile at someone who so readily smiled back.

Eventually the broth pooling at the bottom of their bowls grew cold, and the flasks of sake they’d bought ran dry. Not a soul had tried to enter the yatai while they were present, and Buggy felt a fleeting burst of pity for the gorilla’s business… until he saw how well Shanks had tipped. With a light heart, Buggy waved a slightly drunken farewell to the mink—he’d paced himself pretty well, but a half-dozen bottles of sake split between two men was still going to have an effect—and ducked back out into the wider world.

The air outside was not exactly cold, but it lacked the cozy warmth of the oden-ya’s atmosphere. It set something within Buggy out of alignment—or maybe back into place? He stood just outside the noren with a hand pressed to his chest, trying to place the feeling, as Shanks made his own exit and nearly ran into him.

The proximity of Shanks at his back, with the last traces of that soup-warmed air drifting in his wake, sent a burst of longing down Buggy’s spine so intense his knees went weak.

Shanks’ hand went to his shoulder. “Careful,” Shanks said, hoisting Buggy fully upright, the flat of his arm firm along the length of Buggy’s back. “You alright, Buggy?”

Fuck. Something about Shanks putting an arm over Buggy’s shoulder made his stomach flip and his heart kick into high gear. Stupid, loyal organs didn’t have the sense Buggy’s brain had been given, to recognize that feeling feelings for Shanks was a very bad idea.

“Fine,” Buggy croaked out, taking a few careful steps away from Shanks to confirm he was steady enough to make that lie truth. He shook himself off.

“Your tolerance not what it used to be?” Shanks teased.

“My tolerance is normal,” Buggy insisted, not looking back at Shanks. “Yours, on the other hand...”

“Yeah, unlike you I’m actually fine,” Shanks said, picking up his pace to match Buggy’s stride. Glancing around, he nudged Buggy’s shoulder with his own. “Hey, there’s a park nearby where we won’t be bothered. We can sit down, let you sober up a little before heading back to the ship.”

Buggy drifted in Shanks’ wake on some old instinct. It was only mid-afternoon. “There wasn’t something else you wanted to do?”

Shanks glanced at Buggy over his shoulder. “What?”

“I dunno, some... sight you thought I should see, or a shop you like or something?”

Shanks blinked. “Buggy, I don’t really care about this island, I just wanted to spend time with you.”

Buggy’s face went hot. “You—stop saying shit like that! Don’t you know how that sounds?”

“How it sounds?” Shanks echoed. He led Buggy through a tall, metal gate, into a walled-off plot of land with very little to it, just rock-paved paths, plaques underneath oddly colored trees, and the occasional bench. Closing the gate behind them, he spun on Buggy. “How does it sound?”

Buggy scowled and stormed past him. Like Shanks didn’t know.

“If it sounds like I’ve missed you—well, sorry, Buggy, but I have. I thought I’d been pretty obvious about that.” When Buggy turned an incredulous look on Shanks, the corner of his mouth turned up, amused. “Obvious to everyone but you, I guess.”

“You—you didn’t miss me,” Buggy said. “You missed—” he gestured vaguely between the two of them. “—someone knowing you, without you having to say anything. You missed having a history with someone.”

Shanks shook his head. “I would love to see many people from back then again, but I’ve never missed any of them like I did you.”

“Oh, come on!” Buggy spat, “what was there to miss? A greedy little brat who couldn’t decide if he hated you more than he was jealous of you? A coward who ran and hid from every fight?” The memory of Shanks leaning in close, a hand on his face, shot through Buggy. Resisting another stab of longing, he blurted out, “Some stranger’s pretty face?”

“I missed my best—” Shanks’ face screwed up in confusion. “A pretty face?”

Buggy hadn’t meant to say that. He grimaced. “You know.” Swiping a hand across his face, he chop-chopped his nose off for a moment, hiding the gap behind his free hand. “This one, that you liked so much that time.”

Understanding lit up Shanks’ face. “Oh, the gorgeous stranger with stunning eyes.” A sheepish expression coming over him, Shanks looked away. “Can I tell you something embarrassing?”

Buggy blinked. Not the response he’d expected. “Uh, sure?”

“I only thought those eyes were so stunning because they reminded me of yours.”

Buggy’s jaw dropped. “The hell they did!”

“They did!” Shoving his hand over his eyes, Shanks smiled self-consciously. “Oh, I felt so ridiculous later. That poor guy, I thought, was deserving of more than my secondhand affections.” Dropping his hand to look at Buggy, he said, “Though that’s nothing compared to how ridiculous I felt the other day.”

Buggy swallowed, mouth dry.

“I’m sorry, Buggy,” Shanks said after a long, silent moment. “If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

Buggy blinked.

Well. Of course he wouldn’t have. That went without saying.

He stepped back. “I know that.”

“You do?” Shanks frowned. “You do. I… good.” Shoulders hunched, he turned to squint at a plaque mounted beneath a pink-leafed bush. “That’s good. I don’t want there to be any more misunderstandings between us.”

“What’s there to misunderstand?” Buggy spotted a bench and sat down. He immediately felt clearer-headed. Maybe Shanks was right about his tolerance. “I get it. You kiss strangers, not old friends.”

Shanks paused mid-step. “Are you…” He spun to frown at Buggy. “Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?”

“Hm?” Buggy had just gotten comfortable, hiking one knee over the bench’s arm. What was Shanks talking about now?

“Buggy.”

Buggy craned his head back to look up at Shanks. He looked tall from this angle, and taller still when he leaned over Buggy, resting his hand on the back of the bench. Shanks’ expression was unreadable, but intense. Buggy’s mouth felt dry again. Oh, this was bad.

“I was not apologizing for kissing you. I was apologizing for kissing you wrong.”

“Kissing me wrong?” Buggy echoed, bewildered.

“If I’d known that stranger was you, I still would have kissed him,” Shanks said bluntly. “I’d kiss you now, if you’d let me. But it wouldn’t be like that kiss. It would be different.”

Buggy blinked, dumbfounded.

Shanks… wanted to kiss him.

Not the stranger he’d taken him for back then, but Buggy himself.

Had wanted to kiss Buggy then.

Still wanted to kiss Buggy now.

…would kiss him in a different way from a stranger.

“Different how?” Buggy croaked out.

For a long, agonizing moment, Shanks stared blankly at Buggy. A furious heat rushed into Buggy’s face—there was no way to take a sentence like that back. He couldn’t pretend it was simple curiosity. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t eager to be kissed.

Slowly, Shanks grinned, infuriatingly smug. “Would you like me to show you?”

Chapter Text

Staring at that dumb, smug face, Buggy’s thoughts flipped from oh, fuck to oh, fuck it.

“What kind of question is that?” he snapped, clutching at Shanks’ collar. Pulling himself up as much as pulling Shanks down, he said, “You’re such an idiot Shanks, sometimes I really don’t know why I—” Thankfully, Shanks came willingly—still grinning, the idiot—and Buggy was cut off before he could say anything truly incriminating.

And, well, Shanks was right. Their other kiss—a sweet little press of lips—was very different from this one. This kiss went on and on, and right from the start it was hungry.

The taste of shochu on Shanks’ tongue made Buggy’s nose wrinkle in distaste—‘earthy’ drinks just tasted like dirt to him—but he pushed past it, focusing on the slide of that tongue against his, a slick warmth that made him shudder and pull his arms tighter around Shanks’ neck. That wasn’t the only thing making him shudder, either—Shanks’ thumb stroking at the corner of Buggy’s jaw, encouraging him to open wider, let him in deeper, did that too. And that hand sliding down Buggy’s neck and across his back, leaving a wide trail of warmth in its wake, had Buggy making needy little noises that would embarrass him later. In the moment, when they encouraged Shanks to make desperate noises of his own, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The crick he was developing in his neck was a bit of a pain, though, and easily remedied. Buggy split himself at the waist and floated his upper half up to bring his head level with Shanks’, so neither was bending to reach the other. He must have overshot a little, though, or moved too fast without warning; Shanks let out a small, surprised noise, pressing in closer, and the pleasant weight of Shanks’ arm across Buggy’s shoulders became a desperate clinging, fingers digging into the back of Buggy’s shirt so he wouldn’t fall on his ass. Lucky for Shanks, Buggy could hold a fishman in one hand when split, a man was nothing. But holding Shanks like this would just put them in the reverse of their previous uncomfortable position, so after a moment (or two, or… look, the way Shanks clung to him was doing something for him) Buggy leaned Shanks back against the bench, pushing a little until he gave in and sat.

Without breaking the kiss—as much because Shanks wouldn’t let him as because he didn’t want to—Buggy reconnected his lower half and turned to sit with his legs curled under him on the bench. His hands, which he’d cut loose to grope around under Shanks’ shirt as they pleased, reconnected with his wrists to cup Shanks’ face between his palms. By gentling the kiss a bit, pulling back on the tongue, making some room for them to breathe, he got Shanks to ease up in turn. The press of his lips grew less forceful, less desperate. His hand loosened its death grip on Buggy’s shirt, and he started to rub circles into the small of Buggy’s back in time with the movement of his lips, which was a very distracting sensation.

Soon Buggy had to pull back, needing some literal breathing room, and stared at Shanks, breathless and red-faced for new reasons, his eyes sliding open to reveal a beautifully dazed expression. It wasn’t a sight Buggy would forget any time soon.

“Buggy,” Shanks breathed, and the sound of his voice in that moment was something Buggy wasn’t likely to forget either.

“Rushing things again,” he said, a little chidingly, stroking his thumbs over Shanks’ cheekbones. “What’s your hurry? I’m not going anywhere.”

An emotion washed over Shanks’ face so briefly Buggy could have told himself he’d imagined it. He hadn’t, of course, and he immediately knew what had caused it. He was going somewhere. Not right now, no, but winds and tides willing, tomorrow he’d be back with his crew. And soon Shanks would be back in the New World, where someone like him belonged.

Buggy sighed and leaned back, hesitating only when Shanks grabbed at his arm, but it was just to take one of Buggy’s hands in his. A little clingy, but Buggy could allow that much after he’d had the man’s tongue down his throat. Licking his lips and shivering when they tingled unexpectedly, Buggy said, “What do you want, Shanks?” When Shanks cocked an eyebrow at him, as if to say I think that should be obvious by now, Buggy shook his head. “I’m serious. You’re an Emperor, you sail in the New World. My crew can’t handle those territories; they’ve barely managed to survive in Paradise. So you and I are not going to sail together as allies, and you know I would never take your flag and sail as your subordinate. Even if I could bear it, we’ve always wanted different things as pirates, we wouldn’t work well together. So what do you want here? What are you trying to get?”

Shanks smiled, a slightly sad edge to it, and lifted Buggy’s hand to his lips. He pressed an insistent kiss to the back of the hand, like he was a prince out of some fairy story. “Time with you, Buggy. That’s all I dared hope for.”

Buggy squirmed. “Hardly seems worth all the effort for just one day.”

“Life is short,” Shanks said plainly. “Who knows if we’ll ever see each other again? At least now I know what it’s like to kiss you for real.” He kissed Buggy’s hand again, pressing his lips against each knuckle in turn. It made Buggy squirm in a different way, tugging his hand free before Shanks had gotten halfway through. Shanks gave him a fond, amused look. “That’s more than worth the effort to me.”

“Stupid,” Buggy muttered.

“Yeah, I guess I can be pretty stupid when it comes to you. My first mate thinks so, anyway.” Shanks dropped his hand to rest against Buggy’s waist. Tracing his thumb along the curve of Buggy’s hipbone, making Buggy hyperaware of that spot, Shanks leaned in, saying, “You don’t mind, do you?”

Buggy rolled his eyes. Just before their lips touched, a feeling came over him—a regret not yet realized, who knows if we’ll ever—and he pulled back far enough to meet Shanks’ eye. “Shanks, you know I…” Buggy hesitated. Shanks stared at him, smile fallen away. Buggy… couldn’t say it. He cleared his throat. “You know I’m not gonna stay in Paradise forever, right?”

Cocking his head to one side, Shanks said, “Is that right?”

“Yeah, you know how I am.” Buggy put a hand to Shanks’ cheek, giving in to the impulse to touch those scars again. Shanks’ eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into the contact. This time Buggy let himself enjoy the view, even when Shanks opened his eyes to reveal an uncomfortably tender expression. “I wanna get my hands on every big treasure trove there is, and there’s plenty to be found in the New World.” Buggy rose up on his knees. He liked the way Shanks rolled his head back to maintain eye contact. He liked the way Shanks looked from above. He smirked. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Shanks gave him a long, considering look. “I’ll be looking forward to that,” he said with a smile. The smile was sly at the corners, concealing some little secret Shanks must imagine himself so clever for keeping. Against his better judgement, Buggy wanted to taste it. He remembered after a moment that he could, and ducked down, arms sliding around Shanks’ neck. Shanks responded with enthusiasm, pulling Buggy into his lap, and Buggy set the potential regret of words not said aside.

Even though they’d left the Red Force together that morning, Buggy decided they should return separately. Shanks’ cow eyes would be too obvious, he said, to which Shanks replied that he’d been wearing them around Buggy this whole time, and Buggy just hadn’t noticed. But, as it was Buggy’s reaction to the cow eyes that he didn’t want people seeing, this only strengthened Buggy’s resolve. And so Shanks was left to find something in town to occupy his attentions for twenty minutes, Buggy didn’t particularly care what, while Buggy made a hopefully unremarkable return to the ship.

Most of the Red Force's guests were still out and about, enjoying the amenities of the island, and the crew had clearly put that time to good use. There were only two crates left waiting to be loaded aboard the Red Force, and aside from a man leaning against one of those crates, the docks were clear. There were delicious smells in the air, and a cheery tune carried from somewhere above. Buggy hummed as he approached the ship, trying to figure out how he knew the tune. Whatever it was, it was catchy.

Recognizing the man leaning against a crate as the Red-Haired Pirates’ first mate, Buggy had a feeling that something about these last two crates required Shanks’s approval. He didn’t feel great about inconveniencing this guy by keeping Shanks away from his duties. Then, remembering that Shanks had been the one to claim he had a day free, Buggy metaphorically stabbed that feeling in the back and threw it overboard. If this guy wanted to waste his afternoon waiting around for Shanks, that was on him.

The first mate stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet as Buggy approached the ship. Second-guessing his assumption about why this guy was hanging around, Buggy paused a few steps from him. The guy looked Buggy up and down and said, “Buggy the Clown,” with an expectant tone.

Oh no. What was his name? Shanks had mentioned it earlier, during that story about his years-long effort to woo an East Blue sniper into joining his crew. Something alliterative. With Bs? Buggy started to sweat. Shit, he had nothing. He cleared his throat. “Ben…king?” When the guy’s face didn’t so much as twitch to indicate whether Buggy had gotten his name right, Buggy gave up. “It’s something with a B, right?”

Shanks’ first mate smirked, laughing a little to himself. “Benn Beckman.” He held out a hand, and after a nervous moment Buggy took it. Beckman gave him a firm shake. Ducking down to pull a crowbar out from behind the crate he’d been sitting on, he said, “We should talk.”

Buggy gulped.

When Shanks appeared, it didn’t feel like it had been twenty minutes. Buggy frowned, checked the sky, frowned more when the position of the sun low on the horizon suggested it had actually been closer to an hour, and gave Shanks a suspicious look. He wasn’t sure whether to ask what had taken so long or to apologize for squandering the time he’d been given. He’d meant to make himself scarce, so they wouldn’t have to navigate being around other people so soon after… all that… but for a man who presented himself as ‘the serious one,’ Beckman was surprisingly good company.

And a horrific gossip. Buggy still couldn’t believe some of the stories he’d told about the Red-Haired Pirates.

“What’s going on here?” Shanks asked, attempting to sound lighthearted but glancing between Buggy and Beckman with such obvious concern on his face that Buggy couldn’t help but snort.

“Just getting to know your old friend a little better,” Beckman said. Gesturing to Shanks with the bottle of rum he’d pulled out of one of the crates—which were, in fact, waiting on Shanks (to direct them to the right room, because apparently sometimes Shanks drank so much he needed a whole crate to himself! the hell!)—he said, “I’m learning so much about you, boss.”

“Oh,” Shanks said weakly. “Good?”

Buggy cackled.

“Not good,” Shanks concluded.

“I’m learning a lot too,” Buggy said. “You know, I had a feeling being your first mate would be a nightmare. I thought I was prepared.” Shanks mouthed ‘prepared’ to himself, a bewildered look coming into his eyes. “But the hells you’ve put this man through, Shanks. You are so lucky that I left when I did, I would have strangled you to death within a month.”

“When did you ever want to—” Shanks shook his head, cutting himself off. “Wait, don’t tell me, ‘no sad talk today,’ right?” Buggy swiped the bottle from Beckman, saluted Shanks with it, and took a sip. Shanks sighed. “Fine. But I’m bringing that one up when it isn’t today anymore.” After a moment he frowned, and swiped the bottle from Buggy. “And give me that, that’s mine!” He drank from it absently, taking note of the two crates sitting by the Red Force—one pried open and a bottle removed, the other as yet untouched, a familiar maker’s mark branded into the wood. “Are these both for me?” he asked Beckman.

Beckman nodded. “Just needed confirmation as to where you want them.”

Shanks licked his lips thoughtfully. “The rum can be available to the officers,” he decided. “The sake should go to my rooms.”

Eyebrows raised, Beckman whistled. “It went that badly?”

Shanks looked away and cleared his throat, flushing.

“Oh,” Beckman said, eyebrows even higher. “It went that well.” He gave Buggy a surprised, assessing look. Buggy scowled and crossed his arms, doing his best to pretend he was unaffected by Beckman knowing. Beckman smirked and got to his feet. “Alright,” he said to Shanks, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking it a little. “But you know this means you’re getting the shame glasses for the next week instead of Rockstar.”

Shanks chuckled. “You say that like you weren’t gonna force the shame glasses on me no matter what happened.” Beckman shrugged, retrieving his half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear.

“…shame glasses?” Buggy said, wondering if he’d misheard.

The color drained out of Shanks’ face in an instant. “Beck,” he begged, “don’t.”

Beckman’s smirk went wide enough to show teeth. “Just a little bit of public humiliation we put a member of the crew through when they’ve done something unwise, but not really dangerous.” He clicked his lighter a few times before the flame held and lit his cigarette. Tucking the lighter away, he said, “There’s a silly pair of glasses he’ll have to wear in the public spaces of the ship. It doesn’t tell anyone what he did, just that he’s to be laughed at.”

Ah. Buggy nodded knowingly. “Like the punishment fruit.”

“…punishment fruit?” Beckman asked, lit cigarette smoking away in his hand, forgotten.

Shanks laughed, his natural color restored. “Oh, that. When we were too little for Mr. Rayleigh to knock us over the head when we were acting up, we had to carry around fruit while we did our chores, whatever Cook happened to have spare. The worse we’d messed up, the more we had to carry, and if we dropped one we had to add another, two if the first had been damaged. How many did you have to carry at once, a dozen?” he asked Buggy.

Buggy groaned. “I wish,” he said. “I think the most I ever had was twenty? I kept trying to find less annoying ways to carry them,” he explained to Beckman, “but I always fumbled one, and then I’d have to start over.”

“Though no one could beat the captain’s record,” Shanks said fondly.

“Thank god for that. I could barely handle twenty limes, let alone three dozen.”

“At least it wasn’t twenty coconuts.”

Buggy burst out laughing. “Oh, remember the day Cook only had watermelons? I thought you were going to cry.”

“I did,” Shanks admitted with a chuckle. “Four of those weighed more than me at that age, I could barely walk!”

Cigarette finally remembered, Beckman took a pull and huffed out a laugh. “Learning so much,” he said, wrenching the lid of the rum crate back into place. “I’ll have these moved to the appropriate places before dinner, boss,” he said to Shanks. “We’re expecting the rest of our guests back in the next hour or so, so you may want to move… this… elsewhere.” And with that, he was marching up the gangplank and getting the attention of a few pirates who’d been lounging around, casually facing the docks—the Red-Haired Pirates’ version of being on watch duty, Buggy supposed.

Shanks cleared his throat.

Buggy didn’t look his way.

“Beck is… assuming a lot,” Shanks said, voice a little choked. “I don’t—we don’t have to—” When Buggy gave in and looked at him, he found Shanks wearing an expression so uncomfortable and embarrassed he nearly laughed.

“How did that talk Crocus gave us go?” Buggy said, faux-thoughtfully. “‘If you can’t say the word, you’re not ready to do it?’”

Shanks spluttered. “Buggy!”

Buggy grinned. “How are you still this easy to mess with?” He gave Shanks a pat on the shoulder, hoping it came off as friendly to any onlookers. “I know we don’t have to. I haven’t decided if I want to.” Shanks let out a small, hurt sound. Buggy ignored this. “Even if I decide in your favor, I wouldn’t want to now, not when everyone will be back aboard within the hour.” He cocked an eyebrow at Shanks. “Or would that be enough time for you?”

A tortured look came over Shanks’ face: part embarrassment, part exasperation, part… something Buggy didn’t want to label just yet. “You…”

Cackling, Buggy split himself into a dozen pieces and flew off, his feet jogging up the gangplank while the rest of him reformed on a higher deck. He leaned against the railing and watched Shanks bury his face in his hand, make an incoherent noise, then board the ship like nothing had happened. Buggy grinned. It was good to be on this side of the balance of confidence, to feel comfortable around Shanks again. He knew where he and Shanks stood; he could tease him and know he wasn’t taking things the wrong way.

Letting his legs float in the air behind him while he waited for his feet to find him, Buggy laughed a little at himself. How had he thought Shanks’ interest in him could be just physical? If anything, it was barely physical, the interactions of their bodies the only way Shanks knew of to express the gooey feelings he’d somehow kept to himself all these years. And while it would be easier for Buggy if his feelings were strictly physical… the fact was, they weren’t. A handsome man pinned in place beneath Buggy was always a welcome sight, but no one had ever been half as captivating in that position as Shanks.

And Buggy could have him in that position again, and others, if he just… made a decision. He’d told Shanks that he hadn’t yet decided whether he wanted to push forward—which was a lie. Of course he wanted. What was yet undecided was if it was a good idea. Buggy’s gut said yes, very good in fact, but his instinct said no, not even a little. It was unsettling to have his two major impulses fighting against each other on a matter less serious than life-or-death.

He needed an outside perspective. There were plenty of those to go around on this ship, but one willing to offer him a sympathetic ear would be hard to come by. Impossible to find, really, unless… Buggy huffed out a sigh. After the way he’d acted the last few days, he’d need to do some work to curry Galdino’s favor. Now, what could that man want…?

By the time dinner service was underway, a crowd of ex-prisoners had gotten bottlenecked at the end of the dock. The wait to climb the gangplank was so long Lucky Roux had lower-ranked Red-Haired Pirates slinging buckets of food and drink down the ropes that attached the Red Force to the dock, to give the crowd something to snack on until they made it aboard ship for the main course, an enormous slow-cured haunch of Sea King that Roux had apparently been saving for a special occasion. (And it was definitely a special occasion kind of food. Even Buggy, who’d thought himself so tired of Sea King meat that he’d be sick if he had it again, couldn’t resist going back for seconds.) The men didn’t seem to mind the wait, chatting excitedly amongst themselves and looking around the dock for friends and comrades. Given how many were squinting up at the rigging, Buggy could guess who they were really after.

After the day he’d had, he wasn’t exactly starving for attention, but it never hurt to get lavished with praise. Buggy split away his feet, jumped over the railing and did a little spin to draw the eye. “Looking for me?!” he called out.

“Captain Buggy!” they cried, ecstatic.

“I hope all of you behaved yourselves out there,” he said from his position above the crowd. “You reflect on me, and on our hosts, you know!”

“We know!”

“We wouldn’t dare bring any disrespect to yourself or the Red-Haired Pirates!”

“We were on our best behavior, we promise!”

“Captain Buggy! Captain Buggy!” said one particularly persistent man, a shaggy-haired guy Buggy couldn’t have picked out of a lineup. He started to tremble when he realized he’d successfully gotten Buggy’s attention, but with his neighbors supporting him got himself under control. He held up a brown paper package, saying, “Some of us had the idea—that is, we wanted to thank you for taking us under your wing, Captain. So… this is for you!”

Buggy’s jaw dropped. “A present?” For him? To thank Buggy for looking after them? How backwards could you get?! Well, Buggy wasn’t one to turn up his nose at free stuff. “You shouldn’t have!” Buggy said, swooping down to snatch the package out of the nervous man’s hands. He started to open it, then froze. They’d just said they’d been on their best behavior, but… “How did you get the money to pay for this?”

“Honest work!” Dozens of men threw their arms up, revealing hands that were red and chapped from manual labor.

“I’d never done any before, it was surprisingly fun!”

“We’re learning so much under Captain Buggy’s tutelage!”

Buggy grinned, shaking his head. These guys were something else. No longer worried about Shanks’ crew complaining that Buggy’s men had stolen from ordinary people—the kind of soft-hearted rule Buggy had no doubt Shanks had carried forward from their days on the Oro Jackson—he tore open the package with glee.

Under the paper sat an eyeshadow palette and a tube of lipstick.

Neither were Buggy’s usual brand, of course, given he only wore special, extra-durable cosmetics ordered from exclusive catalogs these days. But the sight sparked a nostalgic pang in his chest for those early days, when he hadn’t known what he was doing or how to do it, and just grabbed things at random from every general store he robbed. They had managed to find a lip tint that was close enough to his usual to match, and while the palette was mostly neutral colors, it did include a black eyeliner pencil and a square of white powder, which was all he was wanting for at the moment.

They’d noticed his makeup getting thin, and worked together to do something about it. Without even letting on that they’d noticed! To his embarrassment, Buggy found himself tearing up.

“You guys…” he choked out, clutching the gift to his chest. “You’re… you’re not half bad!” And with these inadequate words, he zoomed off to his room, leaving them sobbing in his wake at his touching emotionality, to give the new product a try.

Galdino was in their room, of course. He’d had the sense to get back early, like the Whitebeard Pirates, and had eaten in the galley at the same time as Buggy. He hadn’t done anything so obvious as sit on the opposite side of the hall, but he’d kept his distance. The message had been pretty clear: Galdino was finished dealing with Buggy, and he didn’t intend to start up again. Buggy had accepted that, and spent the meal attempting to convince Lucky Roux to leave his dull ship behind in favor of the far more exciting environment of the Big Top—no luck there, sadly.

But by the look on Galdino’s face at the neatly folded offering sitting on his half of the bed, Buggy had some hope that he might be able to salvage this partnership.

“What is this?” Galdino asked, picking up a pair of black cropped pants that probably used to belong to Shanks. The quartermaster’d had no problem with Buggy taking anything and everything he wanted—if it ended up in his stores, no one must have cared for it that much, he claimed. So Buggy had pulled out everything that looked around Galdino’s size, to give him his choice in clothes that weren’t ragged prison uniforms or stolen Marine ones.

Buggy sighed. “An apology.” Galdino’s eyebrows went up. “Yesterday, and this morning, you were asking reasonable questions. I was just… freaking out, and pretending not to. Ignoring you didn’t help. This was the only way I could think of to make it up to you.” He shrugged. “I had to guess at your sizes, but the Red Force’s quartermaster has tons of clothes on hand, I can go back if you need a different fit.”

Galdino sorted through the pile without a word, holding shirts up to his chest and setting them aside, tugging waistbands apart and frowning. He ended up settling on that pair of black pants and a sort of reddish-orange button-up, which he tried on after silently twirling a finger at Buggy to make him turn around.

“Okay, I’m done.” The fit wasn’t perfect, but it looked a marked improvement on the prison uniform. And Galdino was smiling a little. Surely that had to mean— “Now, how’d you fuck it up this time?”

Buggy squawked. “Excuse me?!”

“You aren’t fooling me,” Galdino said, sitting on the edge of the bed and hooking one leg over the other. He laced his hands together and looked up at Buggy with a broad smirk on his face. “You wouldn’t apologize unless you needed something from me—and you just got finished complimenting my questions and advice. So: what went wrong today?”

“I—nothing!” Flustered, Buggy said, “Since when do you care, anyway?! I thought this didn’t concern you anymore!”

“When you were pretending there was nothing to be concerned about, it didn’t,” Galdino said bluntly. “But if you’re done with that pretense, so am I. On that note: nothing went wrong? Really?” One of his eyebrows went up. “So, you got to have your private conversation, caught up, and… that’s all? Something like eight hours between leaving the ship and returning, and that’s all that happened?” He glanced over at Buggy’s side of the bed, where the oden-patterned shirt sat in a crumpled pile. “While wearing a shirt out of his closet?”

Buggy rolled his eyes, pretending he wasn’t blushing furiously. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you were right. Though we did spend a few hours catching up in there… we also made out for a while.”

“Made out?” Galdino wrinkled his nose. “That’s all?”

Buggy frowned. “Yeah? What else were you expecting?”

“For you to get a room for the afternoon.” Enlightenment struck Galdino. “Ah, that’s what this is about. You don’t know if it’s a good idea to seal the deal.”

“I—” In a lot of ways, Galdino was a kindred spirit to Buggy, but his euphemisms were a bit… businesslike for Buggy’s tastes. “Basically.”

“Right.” Galdino relaxed a little, leaning back to consider Buggy. “Well, we’ve already established he’s a sure thing. And you like him well enough to offer lip service if not the full menu.” (“Do you have to call it that?”) “Downsides… the way you describe him, he seems softhearted enough, I suppose he could get overly attached.” Buggy snorted. “No?”

“He’s already overly attached,” Buggy explained. “But he’s not stupid, he knows we’re not sticking together.”

“And as you’re the one who told him so, you must know better than to get attached.” Galdino gave Buggy a considering look. “More attached, anyway.” Buggy didn’t pout at this (correct) accusation, but it was a near thing. Holding his chin in one hand, Galdino said thoughtfully, “I guess the ultimate question is, what would you regret more? Missing the opportunity, or taking it and having it go bad?”

Buggy blinked. Framed like that, it was obvious. (Who knows if we’ll ever—) “Missing it.”

Galdino waved his hand toward Buggy. “There you have it, then.”

Huh. That had been easier than Buggy expected. ”Thanks.” Snatching up his forgotten present with one hand and the mirror with the other, he floated himself up to get the best angle on the remaining sunlight shining through the window. “Now, if you'll excuse me…”

”Yeah, sure,” Galdino got to his feet, an amused expression on his face. “Got to make yourself pretty for your date.”

“I’ll kill you,” Buggy said, applying a test swatch of the lipstick to his inner arm. It had a surprisingly smooth application, maybe it wasn’t as cheap as he’d assumed. He applied a quick layer to his top lip, admiring how well it blended with the tint already there. “Oh, but first, can you make me another of those make-up removing wax sticks?” Something hit Buggy in the side of the head. “Thank you!” he crooned as Galdino left the room, muttering imprecations under his breath but smiling all the while.

If Buggy had thought his spirits were lighter just knowing where he stood with Shanks, it was amazing how much better he felt knowing where he stood himself. No more second-guessing, no more doubts. Shanks was a sure thing, and so was he. Shanks just didn't know it yet.

Hm. To draw things out to torture him, or get the waiting over with?

Now this was a fun decision to be struggling with, Buggy thought as he carefully traced out the crossbones he'd been missing from his cheeks. On one hand, torturing Shanks was always a good time… on the other, given how things had gone this afternoon, Buggy had a reasonable suspicion that there was a good time to be had on the other side of that waiting.

He bit his lip thoughtfully, remembering. A very, very good time.

Of course, this assumed that Shanks was available now. Just because he’d claimed to have the whole day free didn't make it so—look at Beckman, hanging around the docks waiting for Shanks to show up and tell him where to put his booze. There might have been another dozen small tasks like that waiting for Shanks. He hadn’t eaten dinner in the galley; according to Lucky Roux, Shanks hadn’t left the senior officers’ lounge since he returned to the ship. That could have been to avoid Buggy, the way he’d wanted Shanks to, or it could be that the work he’d avoided all day had caught up with him.

Well, there was one way to find out.

Buggy found Shanks’ rooms without any difficulty. The decks were full of men lounging around with too-full bellies, singing along to the tune the musician and his pet (?) monkey were playing, but the inner workings of the ship were more sparsely populated. At this hour, people were either on the deck or in their rooms, not moving between spaces. Shanks would either be here, or in his senior officers’ lounge… which Buggy didn’t know the location of, so he sure hoped Shanks was here. He wasn’t about to go asking someone like Beckman where Shanks was. Buggy wasn’t interested in being that obvious.

He knocked. After a minute of quiet footfalls on gently creaking wood, the door swung open.

Shanks blinked a few times at Buggy. “Buggy?” He swiped something off the top of his head and shoved it into a drawer. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Oh, well, you know,” Buggy said evasively, ducking around Shanks, “I thought I should return this now, or knowing me I’d forget to do it in the morning, and then I’d be a regular shirt thief.” He held out the oden-patterned shirt, neatly folded into the tidy square Rayleigh had taught them to make decades ago.

Shanks blinked down at the shirt. “And we wouldn’t want you being called a shirt thief,” he said slowly.

”It’s certainly not the kind of thievery I aspire to,” Buggy said, shoving the shirt into Shanks’ chest with a grin on his face. He hadn't expected him to be this slow about things, it was kind of cute.

“No,” Shanks agreed, staring down at the shirt in his hand. He set it down on a desk and looked at Buggy with hope in his eyes. “Buggy, are you—really?”

“What, did you expect me to walk in still wearing that shirt and say, oh, let me return this to you, and start stripping or something?” Buggy scoffed. “Sorry, I'm not that suave.”

Shanks smiled. “No. You could never make things that easy.”

Buggy raised an eyebrow at him. “I see the joke you’re directing me towards, and I’ll have you know I am never easy.”

Shanks grinned. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

Splitting a hand at the wrist, Buggy floated it around Shanks’ back. With a grin of his own, he said, “But maybe you can convince me to make an exception for you.”

The door closed. The latch slid into place. And neither were opened again until morning.

Chapter Text

Buggy woke with a start, and didn’t know where he was. The bed was too soft, the person at his back was too warm. And too close, Galdino had so far always curled up facing the far side of the bed, what was he—Buggy blinked blearily at the faint outline of a sake flask on the nightstand. Oh, right. This was Shanks’ room.

The windows above the bed let in a fair amount of moonlight, but the moon was waxing crescent tonight so Buggy couldn’t see much of anything. He hadn’t thought about it when he decided to stay the night, but he didn’t sleep well in new places. Stupid to think that just because there was a familiar person that the unfamiliar place wouldn’t still disturb his sleep. Ah, well.

Buggy moved slowly, not wanting to wake Shanks if he could help it. It should be possible, they weren’t wrapped up in each other or anything stupid like that… though if Buggy had been asked, he would have imagined Shanks was as clingy asleep as awake. But no, Shanks was close enough that his body heat had soaked into Buggy’s back, but they weren’t touching.

Buggy stretched a little, yawned a little, and rolled over. He couldn’t resist the opportunity to see what a fully grown Shanks looked like asleep. The possibilities were too tempting… what if he had messy hair, or drool dried on his face, or a big snot bubble on one nostril?

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get to find out, because it turned out that Shanks was awake. He was lying on his side, in fact, staring at Buggy. Biting back a yelp of alarm, Buggy swatted him on the arm.

“What the hell!” he hissed.

“What?”

“Why are you watching me sleep? That’s so weird!”

“Is it?”

“Very!”

Shanks smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I just couldn’t sleep, I guess, so I was lying here, thinking…” Buggy open his mouth and Shanks immediately put his hand over it. “I know I set you up for it, but please, no jokes about how hard that must be for me or whatever.”

Buggy made a muffled grumbling sound and shoved Shanks’ hand away. “Thinking about what, then?”

Shanks glanced away for a moment and sighed. “Well, I guess it is after midnight.”

What did that have to do with anything? And then Buggy remembered: his moratorium on sad topics had been for one day only. With a huff, Buggy turned away from Shanks. He didn’t want to see Shanks’ face while he asked his question.

“Buggy. Buggy, look at me? Please?” Shanks’ hand tugged at Buggy’s shoulder, a silent echo of his request.

Silently groaning—he used to say no to Shanks all the time, when had he lost the knack for it?!—Buggy rolled over and said, “Fine. But I get my sad question first!”

Shanks considered him. He nodded. “That’s fair.”

Great! If only he’d had one prepared. Buggy’s thoughts went every which way—what did he want to know, what intel could he get out of Shanks?—before latching onto something totally useless, but also deeply important. “Did you know?” Realizing this was stupidly vague, he added, “About the kid?”

Shanks’ brow furrowed. “‘The kid?’”

“Ace.”

“Ah.”

“Did you know he was…?”

Shanks sighed and laid down. Staring at the ceiling, he said, “I… had my suspicions. When I met him, a couple years back, he told me a lot about himself. His dreams… where he was born… it was suggestive. And then there was his name.”

Buggy groaned. “Who names a kid after their sword?!”

Shanks chuckled. “Who else but our captain?”

Buggy sighed. “That guy.” He propped himself up on an elbow to look down at Shanks. “So he didn’t—no one told you?” Told you and not me?

Shanks shook his head. “Who would have? Who could have?”

Buggy shrugged. “I don’t know, doesn’t that haki stuff sometimes let you talk in each other’s heads or something?”

Shanks laughed. “No! It doesn’t work like that! How many times—”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t know how it works, I don’t care how it works! I just—” Wanted to know if I’d been overlooked again. “—wanted to know if you knew.”

“No.” Shanks eyes softened, as if he’d heard Buggy’s real reason. He reached up to curl the end of Buggy’s ponytail around a finger and tug Buggy closer. “No, I think the only person the captain told was Garp.”

Buggy made a disgusted noise, which was not at all strangled by his reaction to Shanks’ hand in his hair. (Nope! That wasn’t provoking any kind of feeling in Buggy at all!) “Garp,” he muttered darkly. “What the hell was he thinking?!”

“Probably that Garp could keep his son safe.” In the dim light, Shanks’ eyes were hooded, unreadable.

“Oh yeah, he kept him real safe,” Buggy said dryly.

“As a kid, I mean.”

“What’s that matter? However safe his childhood was, he’s dead now,” Buggy snapped. “Our childhood was about as far from safe as possible, but at least we’re alive! At least we were cared for! That kid… the way he thought of himself…” Buggy buried his face in Shanks’ chest and sighed deeply. “It wasn’t right. One of us should’ve had him.”

Shanks’ hand came to rest on the back of Buggy’s neck. “Being a dad at sixteen would’ve been hard.”

“I guess,” Buggy grumbled. “But we would have managed.”

Shanks’ hand went stiff and still, fingers digging into Buggy’s neck a little. Buggy realized what he’d said and started to sweat. He’d been hoping to distract Shanks from his question, not bring them back around to that topic himself.

“Buggy. Please look at me.”

Buggy craned his neck back to look Shanks in the eye, resting the point of his chin on his chest in a pointed, hopefully painful move.

Shanks grimaced. “I’m sorry, Buggy, but I have to know. When did you ever want to be my first mate?” How did I miss that, his eyes seemed to ask.

It was about as hard to look at as Buggy had expected. He averted his eyes. “That last year with the crew? Maybe earlier, I don’t know.” Liar. Feeling vaguely guilty, Buggy raised his head, crossing his arms over Shanks’ chest and letting the point of his chin hook over the crossing point. Since they were already talking about this shit… “Why did you really stay behind with me?”

It took Shanks a moment to put together what he was asking about. “Instead of going with the rest of the crew to Laugh Tale, you mean?”

Buggy’s hands dug into the soft interior of his elbows. “I didn’t need you to look after me. The fever wasn’t serious enough to need Crocus to stay behind to manage, a local nurse could’ve handled it.”

“Hm, probably,” Shanks said. Buggy could feel eyes on him, but he didn’t budge. Shanks sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, Buggy. There’s no secret motive. I didn’t go without you because I didn’t want to go without you.”

All the air in Buggy’s lungs escaped at once, in a sound not quite a sigh or a gasp. Then what changed, he wanted to ask. Why did you say you wouldn’t go? His nails clawed into his skin, leaving behind lines that shaded quickly from white to red. He couldn’t. This conversation was a minefield they’d knowingly walked into, risking pain for the truth, but he knew—without having any idea what the answer might be—that this question was a step too far. No truth could be worth revisiting that heartbreak. “It wasn’t out of some stupid, noble sense of fairness?” he asked instead, spitting out the last word.

“No, Buggy,” Shanks said, voice gentle.

Buggy clenched his jaw so tight he felt his molars creak under the pressure. He let his hands ball up into fists to keep from drawing blood. Shanks stroked his thumb across the spot where Buggy’s neck met his hairline, and repeated the gesture once, twice… when it became clear he was not going to stop doing it, all the tension ran out of Buggy like sand from a broken hourglass.

What the hell. He’d been offered honesty; it would be beyond cruel to not offer it in return. “…I thought being your first mate was the only way I’d get to the last island.”

“…you wanted to go there together? That long ago?”

Buggy grimaced. That awed tone of voice told him Shanks had gotten the wrong idea. “More like I didn't think I could get there alone.”

“Oh.” After a moment’s pause, Shanks went back to stroking Buggy’s hair. Buggy relaxed, cheek sinking into Shanks’ chest. His heartbeat thudded away by Buggy’s ear in a slow, steady comfort. I’m here, I’m alive, I’m here… “Then I’m glad.”

“Hm?”

“I’m glad that we didn’t stay together back then,” Shanks said, sounding almost surprised by his words. Buggy stared blankly into space, not believing what he was hearing. Shanks nodded, surer, and said, “Yeah, never thought I’d be saying that, but… I want you to believe in yourself more than I want you to be with me, Buggy.”

Buggy blinked back a sharp stinging in his eyes.

Shanks tensed underneath him. “Buggy?”

Buggy shook his head, lifted himself up the barest amount, and pressed their lips together. Shanks made a soft, protesting noise, but Buggy would not be moved. He wouldn’t express these feelings in words. It couldn’t be done. This shaky, insufficient kiss was the best he could do.

With a resigned little sigh, Shanks sank back into the bed, fingers threaded into Buggy’s hair, and let Buggy kiss him. Their faces came together and drifted apart so slowly, so many times, that Buggy would be hard-pressed to pinpoint the moment when they finally stopped, but stop they did as sleep claimed them again.

When Buggy woke for the second time, early morning sunlight gleamed through the windows over Shanks’ bed. He was warm and well-rested, sated in almost every meaning of the word, and had no interest in getting up. And who could blame him? Shanks, still asleep, was lying on his back facing Buggy, his hand loosely curled around the back of Buggy’s neck, unconsciously keeping him close. Not that Buggy had made any effort to get away in his sleep; his head was on Shanks’ shoulder, his hand resting lightly against Shanks’ carotid, where he must have kept track of that pulse all night. I'm here, I'm alive, I'm here… Shanks’ face was so close that Buggy could see every small hair of the dark red mustache that had grown back in overnight, could feel the air flutter against his cheek every time he breathed. Which—well, the sour, alcoholic morning breath didn’t exactly fit the atmosphere, but Buggy had smelled worse.

Buggy drifted a little, enjoying the gentle rocking of a boat at sea, the human contact with someone who cared for him, eyes shuttered against the sun’s attempt to wake him fully. He didn’t want to get up until he had to. That motion of the boat meant they’d already left port. It wouldn’t be long before they met up with Buggy’s ship and crew, before this time together came to an end. Buggy intended to enjoy it while it lasted. Maybe if he laid here long enough, concentrating on his warm satisfaction, he’d be able to preserve it in his memory.

Outside, something fell to the deck with a loud crunch of wood on wood, the moment was ruined, and Buggy came to his senses.

He grimaced. What was he thinking? Preserving the memory of this sweet, soft morning? Ugh. Buggy rolled away from Shanks, his sappy thoughts snapping him to true wakefulness. What was he, some dockside lover pining away for a pirate he only saw once a decade? As if! If anyone was leaving someone behind here, it was Buggy! And he wasn’t gonna be some sappy excuse for a pirate either, staring wistfully at the horizon, thinking of someone he couldn’t be with—no way! Best to start as he meant to go on: by reminding himself of all the reasons he’d left in the first place, reasons why he would not miss Shanks at all.

He got up, not bothering to wake Shanks but not going quietly about his business either. His clothes were scattered all over the room—which was, he noticed with a touch of amusement and (ugh) affection, a lot less messy than it had been when he stopped by yesterday morning—and they’d gotten all mixed in with Shanks’ clothes, too. After a few false starts (they’d been right, Buggy could not fit in Shanks’ pants these days), Buggy made himself sartorially presentable. One last check in the mirror hanging next to Shanks’ closet, and—what the fuck.

Buggy gaped. He looked like something out of a horror story. His chin was streaked with red, his cheeks a ghastly pale gray where the powder hadn’t rubbed away entirely, just the faintest hint of the original crossbones showing through.

Good god, this makeup wasn’t just cheap, it was really cheaply made. The kind of stuff that would barely last an hour on an expressive face, let alone a day. Buggy put a finger to his cheekbone and watched with dismay as powder came off in a little cloud of dust. Not even his good setting spray would save this stuff. And the way the lip had smeared was—

A thought occurred to Buggy, and he spun around to stare at Shanks in horror. Marks that he hadn’t noticed last night were in the light of day very obvious lip prints in a deep red tint. On his neck, his chest, all the way down his chest in a very telling progression… oh no. No, no, no. This could not be borne.

Buggy dug around in his pockets and pulled out the makeup removing stick he’d gotten from Galdino. He’d thought he might need to touch up the makeup a bit in the morning, but not this much. Glancing between Shanks, the little wax stick, and his own increasingly panicked expression in the mirror, Buggy came up with a plan.

He finished making himself presentable— cleaning up the edges of his lip and removing almost all of the powder from his face, save the slashes of blue meant to draw attention to his eyes—and leapt onto the bed, jolting Shanks into consciousness.

“Shanks!” he hissed.

“Mm?”

“Shanks!” he hissed again. Shanks didn’t stir. “I’ll hit you,” he warned, and Shanks groaned piteously, hungover.

“Not into that so much,” he mumbled, “but if you insist…”

Buggy flushed, shoved that reaction down deep, and said, “Would you wake up already?! I have to go, and you need to promise not to leave your rooms until I’m back.”

“Hm, ’s that so?” Shanks cracked open one eye, finally, and frowned a little at the sight of Buggy, fully dressed. “Now who’s the one in a rush?”

“Didn’t I just say I’ll be back?” Buggy chided. He flicked a finger against Shanks’ chest. “You need makeup remover, and I assume you don’t keep any in here.”

“No.” Shanks blinked. He looked down at himself. “Why would I—oh.” He looked under the blanket. “Oh, wow.”

“You see the problem,” Buggy said dryly.

“I sure do,” Shanks said, voice wavering with disbelief and laughter. “I mean, wow, Buggy.”

“Shut up! It’s not my fault—those guys went and bought me new makeup yesterday!”

“That was sweet of them.”

“Yeah, that and three hundred berries will get you a cup of coffee. Stupid me, I assumed a couple dozen guys doing a day’s work could afford something a little better than this.” Buggy waggled the wax stick aorund and powder rained off it onto the bed. “This stick’s run its course, so I’m off to beg another one…” Buggy gave Shanks’ lipstick-marked chest a considering look. “Maybe two… off Galdino.”

“Bring him tea,” Shanks suggested. “Roux says he’s more agreeable after a cup of Earl Grey.” At Buggy’s look of surprise, Shanks smirked. “That guy’s not the only one keeping tabs on people around here, you know.”

Huh. Well, Buggy would have to rethink every conversation he’d had with or in the presence of Lucky Roux. Later. For now, a bribe of tea sounded like a better plan than the one he’d had (shouting until he got what he wanted). He headed for the door, but was stymied by a hand tangling in his sash. He glared over his shoulder at Shanks.

“What now?”

Shanks—Buggy blinked, not believing what he was seeing—pouted. “Can’t I get a kiss goodbye?”

Buggy blinked twice, not believing what he was hearing. “You must be joking.”

“You aren’t gonna kiss me again after you get this lipstick off me, not when that would undo all your hard work,” Shanks said, sounding very logical for a man with his bottom lip stuck out so far. “But I need a kiss. Just one more, please?”

If someone had told him even yesterday that Shanks would become such a baby the second he was shown the smallest bit of affection… “You know what? Fine.” A delighted expression bloomed on Shanks’ face as Buggy walked back to his side. Buggy smiled, laid a loud, wet kiss dead-center on his forehead, and pulled back to watch his face crumple.

The pouting was, if possible, worse this time. “Buggy, come on.” Shanks tugged at his sash again.

“I don’t know who told you this behavior was attractive, but they did you a real disservice,” Buggy said, splitting at the waist when it became clear Shanks would rather pull the sash loose than let go. “I’m going. I—” Actually, if he was flying anyway… “—do your windows open?”

Shanks dropped the pouty look—ugh, Buggy knew he’d been faking, what an ass—and glanced up. “Yeah, there’s a hinge somewhere…”

Buggy flew up and found a simple latch that let the windows swing out. Not great for hiding that the windows were open, but sensible for evacuation purposes. He flicked the latch and carefully swung open one window. Just big enough for him to get out, excellent.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

Shanks gave him a fond smile. “As you wish.”

Giving Shanks a wary look—he really couldn’t tell how many of these strange comments were jokes anymore—Buggy floated out the window and off toward the galley. Roux happily made up a mug of tea when asked. He also pulled out a cup of drinking chocolate for Buggy, unprompted.

Well, however well Roux had people figured out, he remained a stranger to Buggy; he couldn’t tell if the grin on Roux’s face was a smug, knowing one, or if that was just how he smiled. As Roux was adding the finishing touches to the tea—apparently Galdino liked it with lavender syrup and steamed milk, which was about as fancy as Buggy might have expected—Buggy thought, what the hell, the first mate already knows, and asked for something to eat, chef’s choice, and a bowl of that tomato-egg stuff Shanks liked, both to be picked up when Buggy was done bothering Galdino.

Roux’s grin didn’t change when he agreed, which answered that question.

When Galdino didn’t answer the door, Buggy went ahead and broke in. (Was it really breaking in when it was supposed to be your room too?) He was dead to the world, those wax plugs in his ears again. Buggy started rapping his knuckles against the headboard, knowing the vibrations would get through even if normal sounds wouldn’t. After a minute, Galdino groaned, rolled over, and wrapped himself in a cocoon of wax.

Buggy paused. That was different.

“Did you get drunk last night or something?” he asked. He couldn’t think of another reason Galdino would be this resistant to getting up.

The wax melted away to reveal a miserable, red-eyed man huddled in a ball on the bed. “Or something,” he agreed. Spotting the tea in Buggy’s hands, Galdino made a pathetic little sound and reached for it weakly, fingers stretching out but his arms not actually moving. “Those Red-Haired Pirates do not mess around when it comes to drinking games.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Buggy said, passing the tea along to Galdino, who drank slowly and gratefully. “Shanks could polish off a bottle of wine in an afternoon with no problem by the time we were thirteen, it’s only natural he’d find a crew with similar tolerances.”

Galdino groaned. “That would have been helpful information yesterday.” Draining the mug, he said, “And what did you want, then?”

“Hey, not every interaction has to be transactional, you kn—” Buggy started to say. Galdino gave him a narrow-eyed look, and he gave up mid-word. “More of the makeup removing sticks, please. The shit those guys got me was cheap as hell, it got everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Galdino’s eyebrow shot up. “Like… everywhere everywhere?”

“…and how’s that any of your business?” Buggy asked flatly, glaring daggers at him.

“You can’t blame a man for being curious!”

“The hell I can’t, you flashy, nosy know-it-all!” Buggy grabbed the closest weapon—a pillow—and tried to smother Galdino with it. Galdino shrieked, shielding himself from the onslaught with wax armor. After a brief battle of wills, Buggy stopped trying to kill Galdino, and Galdino made him a full dozen makeup removing wax sticks, at which point Buggy attempted to smother him again, and half the sticks melted and bound Buggy’s hands up, and—anyway. Buggy got out of there eventually, with a reasonable number of wax sticks hidden away in his sash.

As he left that room there was a tugging at his waist that had Buggy looking back, remembering too late that his waist wasn’t here, and grumbling to himself. Oh, was he taking too long for the poor Emperor of the Sea? Tough luck. If someone wanted to see Shanks that badly, they deserved to see him as he was, all lipstick-stained and sex-haired. So long as Buggy wasn’t in the room when it happened, it wouldn’t embarrass him. (Probably.)

The tugging continued, and Buggy rolled his eyes and let it happen, even when it changed from a tugging to a gentle pressure, what felt like Shanks’ whole hand pressed against his waist. What was Shanks thinking, touching Buggy like this? Was he just lying in bed, staring at Buggy’s disembodied legs? What a weirdo. Buggy smiled—then, remembering himself, frowned. What a creep.

At least the galley was empty. Buggy hadn’t checked a clock, but he suspected the night shift and first shift men had already come through, and those without an early schedule had yet to get up. It was super convenient, actually: no one but Roux would see him doing something sort of thoughtful for Shanks. Not that he deserved it, the way he was acting right now, making Buggy start to sweat with the effort of not reacting to the hand on his waist, the thumb rubbing little circles into his skin.

Roux had, somehow, just finished preparing the food, though Buggy had taken twice as long as he’d meant to with Galdino. He had everything packed up in little boxes, tied together with butcher’s twine, a paper cup that reeked of grassy green tea sitting on top of the stack.

“Let me know what you think of what I made for you today,” Roux said with a smile as Buggy went to leave. “I got a little experimental.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” Buggy said with a grin. “I almost think you could get me to eat tomatoes and like it.”

He laughed. “I still haven’t managed to get Shanks to eat blueberries, but I guess anything’s possible!”

That had Buggy laughing to himself the rest of the way back to Shanks’ rooms. He’d forgotten Shanks’ thing about blueberries! As a child, Buggy had accused Shanks of copying him, pretending to hate a blue food in revenge for Buggy legitimately hating a red one, but the truth was he’d always been a little squeamish about their yellow-green insides. Hadn’t liked the look of them, or so he’d said.

Oh, the pranks Buggy had pulled! Hiding a single overripe blueberry in all kinds of terrible places: the bottom of a bowl of porridge, on the seat of a chair, gently placed between the pages of a novel Shanks had bought at the last port town… man, he’d been such a menace as a kid. But Shanks had given as good as he got, so it never felt unfair to mess with him. As he’d gotten older, though, he’d stopped reacting. Either stopped getting mad, or stopped showing that he was mad, Buggy had never been quite sure which. God, it had pissed him off. Shanks was only five months older than Buggy, where did he get off suddenly being so grown-up?

And now Shanks was more easygoing than ever! Buggy didn’t trust it; no one was that unruffled by him, especially not when he was being obnoxious on purpose. Even now that he’d seen some of what Shanks had been hiding, Buggy knew there was more to it. Behind those fond smiles and carefree laughter, there was a part of Shanks he didn’t trust Buggy with.

Which was fine! It was the most sensible thing he’d ever seen Shanks do, honestly—Buggy was a no-good, thieving, backstabbing pirate, he shouldn’t be trusted—but that he wouldn’t admit to it pissed Buggy off. To others, sure, let Shanks play the fool, whatever, but to Buggy? The least Shanks could do was be honest about lying to him.

As he was approaching the open window to Shanks’ room, a sudden jolt of sensation nearly made him yelp. Shanks had shifted his hand lower in a caress that sent a shiver up Buggy’s spine, and now he was rubbing his thumb across Buggy’s hipbone, just like yesterday in the park, which was… Buggy shivered again. Not something to be thinking about in public, damn him! He flew in the window, scowling, dropped the food on Shanks’ nightstand, scowling, and floated back up to shut the window with a scowl on his face.

“Buggy, hey!” Shanks was sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d found pants at some point, but not bothered with a shirt. He grinned. “You got us breakfast?”

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Buggy said, turning that scowl on him.

“Hm?” Shanks said, an innocent look on his face. He was still stroking Buggy’s hip, like that two-inch curve of flesh and bone was the most fascinating thing he’d ever felt.

“I refuse to give you your stupid goodbye kiss, so you decide to rile me up while I can’t do anything to stop you, so when I get back I’ll be unable to help myself, huh? Is that it?”

Shanks blinked. He looked from Buggy’s lower half, standing between his legs, to Buggy’s upper half, floating above him. “Couldn’t you have just… stepped back, or kicked me, if you didn’t like it?”

Buggy opened his mouth to respond and found he didn’t have one. He could have done that. He just… hadn’t wanted to.

Shanks began to smile. “‘Unable to help yourself,’ you said?”

Buggy scowled. “You’re lucky you’re hot.” He shoved Shanks back and climbed on top of him, ignoring the laughter that burst out of Shanks as his head hit the mattress.

Later, very relaxed and searching for reasons to stay mad at Shanks, he was annoyed to learn that the boxes Roux had packed everything in were special heat-retaining boxes that could stay warm for upwards of half a day if left alone. He couldn’t even revenge himself on Shanks with a cold breakfast! He tried to eat resentfully, but the food was just too good to manage it: thin cuts of yesterday’s fancy ham, fried with syrup to a salty-sweet crisp and layered with fried eggs, cheese, and a sour spicy sauce on a hot dog bun. Roux really was some kind of miracle-worker; the bun wasn’t even soggy.

At least with a hand-held breakfast he could scrub aggressively at lipstick stains with his free hand while he ate. Shanks had to hunch over his nightstand to eat his breakfast (the tomato-egg stuff Buggy had requested, served over fried rice with what looked like spicy pickled cabbage and the fancy ham diced up and mixed in), and obviously he had no hand free to start cleaning himself up. He was happy to criticize Buggy’s technique, though, saying, “Won’t pressing hard enough to bruise defeat the purpose of cleaning me up?” as he leaned into the scrubbing motion.

This was, unfortunately, a reasonable point.

Muttering, “Well excuse me, princess, I didn’t realize you bruised so easily,” under his breath, Buggy switched his focus to less easily bruised parts of Shanks. Just as he was getting started, there was a knock at Shanks’ door. The two of them shared a look—Buggy recently reclothed and fed, Shanks sitting there half-naked with his half-full bowl of rice—and Buggy sighed. He split himself a couple ways, leaving one arm behind to scrub at the lipstick on Shanks‘ chest, floating his head and the rest of his torso to the other room.

“What?” he barked out, sounding so annoyed at being interrupted that (hopefully) no one would question why Buggy was in Shanks’ rooms at this hour.

“Oh, good,” said Benn Beckman. He walked in, terrifying Buggy, who’d been fairly certain that door was locked. “I didn’t have any idea where to check if you weren’t here,” he admitted, glancing past Buggy and making a face at the glimpse he caught of Shanks. “Boss, I think you’re gonna need to just give in and bathe to get all of that off,” he said, before returning his attentions to Buggy.

But Buggy was too distracted by this piece of information to let Beckman get back to his point. “There are bathing facilities on this ship?” he said, horrified. I could have gotten actually clean? Jabbing a thumb at Shanks, he said, “And he still looks like an unwashed rat half the time?!”

“Hey!” Shanks said, affronted.

Beckman coughed, poorly hiding a surprised laugh. “Well, I can’t speak to the boss’s personal hygiene decisions, but yes, we do have showers, and yes, we deliberately hid that from you.” Buggy gaped, aghast. “Our potable water reserves and salinity filters are decent, but we just don’t have the capacity to let all two hundred-odd of you use them,” Beckman admitted. “It would have caused interpersonal conflict none of us wanted to deal with to only give some people access to the showers, especially if there appeared to be any signs of favoritism involved.”

Buggy scowled, but nodded. This was a fair point. He'd been avoiding thinking about similar issues that would be sure to come up when he attempted to squeeze all of the Impel Down prisoners onto the Big Top. The space, the supplies, the food… he needed to find a proper home base, an island no one cared about in Paradise, where he could leave most of these guys while he figured out what the hell he was going to do with a crew that had more than quadrupled in size overnight. Multiple ships? (How?) A bigger ship? (How?) A permanent land-based population? (Who? Where?)

Buggy shook his head. Stupid to borrow problems from the future when he had plenty on his plate in the present. “What did you want with me, then?”

Beckman tilted his head towards the door. “Captain Buggy, if you don’t mind?”

Oh. Using his title, and wanting to talk without Shanks overhearing? This was serious. Buggy dropped the wax stick—Beckman was right, a shower with lye soap would work just as well on makeup this cheap—and reconnected his body, following Beckman into the hall. Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “I’m listening.”

Beckman ran a hand across his face. In a ragged undertone, he said, “Our timeline is a lot tighter than we’re making it look. There’s a trade wind we need to catch tonight, and to do that we need you and yours off this ship within an hour of docking. And, well, you saw how slow-moving that bunch can be. Can you get those guys in some kind of order? God knows they aren’t going to listen to anyone but you.”

Buggy nearly laughed. Was that all? With a grin, he gave Beckman a slap on the arm. “Tell you what,” he said, pushing Beckman back towards Shanks’ room, “you take care of your idiot in here, and I’ll take care of mine out there.”

Beckman sighed, a look of pure relief on his face. “Deal.”

Chapter Text

Buggy spent a very cathartic half-hour shouting at a bunch of guys who ate up his words with a spoon. Always eager to please, the men obediently found themselves disembarkation buddies, cleaned up the messes they’d made, and started gathering their things (mostly weapons they’d stolen off the guards at Impel Down).

It was nice to be respected, Buggy thought as he watched them scurry around the ship. However misplaced the respect, it made people listen to him, something Buggy had wanted for as long as he could remember. He’d never been able to get enough. Probably never would, if the hunger that grew every time these men cheered his name was anything to go by.

He wandered up to the room he shared with Galdino—thankfully empty, he didn’t want to end up in another slap fight over details—and took care of his own possessions. (It wouldn’t do to have any excuses to delay or hang back when they got to the meeting point.) With the modified Marine jacket and hat back on, Buggy could fit everything else of his in a small satchel that he strapped around his waist, neatly hidden by a twist in a sash and the way the jacket fell. He left the room… more or less the way it had been when he arrived—there was no way to hide that dent in the wall, and Galdino would have to be the one to deal with the smear of wax across half the bed—and exited the room for the last time, taking in the view of the deck below with a contented sigh.

The Red Force was a well-run ship—a compliment Buggy would never voice aloud, but in the privacy of his own mind he allowed himself to think it. Even with hundreds of strangers aboard who couldn’t help but get in the way, she was clean, well-equipped, and sailing smoothly. Buggy didn’t know if he’d be able to say the same in a few hours, when all these men would be trying to squeeze onto the somewhat smaller Big Top. Buggy rubbed a hand across his mouth to hide his involuntary grimace at the thought. Maybe the island they were meeting up on had some industry he could put them to work at? A farm would be fantastic, if he could get paid for their labor and get the produce at a discount as well…

Buggy looked over the deck in search of one of Shanks’ senior officers. He didn’t know most of them by name, but those cloaks and capes they wore were distinctive enough that he thought he should be able to identify them on sight, and surely if the one he found didn’t know anything about the island, they could point him to someone who did. The navigator? Roux, who seemed to know a little about everything? Beckman, whose job it was to know something about everything?

And, think of the devil, one of the doors to the interior of the ship opened to reveal Beckman, saying something to a few of those cloaked men. They each went their own way, calling out commands, and Beckman crossed to the railing, taking up a pose not dissimilar from Buggy’s a few levels above him. That was a first mate for you. Always had an eye on things, one way or another.

Buggy sent his feet down the stairs and the rest of him took the shorter path, swooping down to Beckman’s side like a giant white bat. To his credit, Beckman didn’t react to this unusual approach. Instead, calm as anything, he said, “Whatever you said to those men, it seems to be doing the trick. Thanks.”

Buggy waved the praise off. “If they’re so eager to be under my command, they’ve got to start learning to behave themselves sooner or later. Might as well be now.” Leaning an elbow against the railing, Buggy looked Beckman over. He sure did seem a lot more relaxed now than he’d been outside Shanks’ rooms. Relaxed enough to share intel? “Tell me something.”

Beckman glanced sideways at Buggy. “Hm?”

“What do you know about this island where we’re meeting up with my crew? Is it populated?”

“Ah, no,” Beckman said, tilting his head back, recalling the facts. “Snake picked a jungle island that’s a bit out of the way of normal trade routes. There’s some ruins, but no recent habitation.”

Buggy tried not to visibly wilt. “Ah.”

Beckman’s eyes lingered on Buggy. “We didn’t want to risk a naval presence on the island getting word out to the rest of the Marines.”

“No, no, it makes sense.” Buggy sighed, shoving a hand under his hat to scrub at his hair. “Just trying to figure out how the hell I’m gonna feed all these guys in that case.” No way had someone thought to tell Alvida that Buggy was bringing new guys with him, let alone a lot of new guys. She’d have gotten the ship supplied with their normal numbers in mind.

Well, the new guys were a tough bunch, maybe they’d see hunting for their dinner as a fun challenge. Assuming there was anything safe to hunt and eat on this island… Buggy dug his fingers into his scalp, biting back a frustrated groan.

Beckman laughed. “Yeah, I don’t envy you that job. At least we were expecting to take on passengers.” He whistled to get the attention of someone up in the crow’s nest and flashed a hand sign at them. After a few exchanges, he stopped signing and rolled his eyes. “Stubborn, overworking—” Giving Buggy a distracted look, he cut himself off. “Was that all you wanted from me?” Buggy nodded. “Then I’ll see you when Shanks finally gets up the nerve to talk to you… or when we land. Whichever comes first.” With that, he walked over to the mast, got the attention of a young man who’d been leaning against it, and grabbed onto a low-hanging rope. The two of them pulled themselves up into the rigging—to harass whoever was up in the crow’s nest into taking a break, probably.

Buggy watched them climb for a minute, a frown crawling its way across his face. When Shanks finally gets up the nerve to talk to you… so there was something Shanks was hiding that he didn’t think he should, huh? Buggy had figured the feeling he was getting off Shanks was about one of those topics he’d had private conversations with Roger about way back when, not something that Shanks would consider any of Buggy’s business. But apparently that wasn’t the case.

Buggy’s frown deepened. He could come up with a list of topics Shanks wouldn’t want to broach but would still feel obligated to bring up, no problem. But that list was short, and Buggy didn’t like the thought of discussing anything on it.

Unsettled, Buggy leaned back against the mast, arms crossed.

“Look out below!!!”

Buggy looked up and shrieked at the sight of a man falling head-first out of the crow’s nest. He scattered—it wasn’t like his body would soften the blow enough that the guy would live—and then blinked, as a rope he hadn’t noticed went taut, and the falling slowed to a gentle, somehow mechanical motion.

“The hell is wrong with you?!” he demanded, floating up to be eye-level with the slowly descending man. This was, if Buggy remembered correctly, Shanks’ sniper, Yasopp, of the infamous years-long tempting out to sea. Someone with good aim, and a keen eye, but not particularly decisive—or, at least, he hadn’t been back then. He was also apparently someone with a shitty sense of humor; he wasn’t answering Buggy’s question because he was too busy laughing and pointing at Buggy.

“Your face! Oh, my stomach hurts,” he said, clutching at his waist. “Oh man, that was almost worth getting kicked out of the nest.” As they approached the ground, he shifted his weight so his feet would touch down first, and untangled himself from the rope with practiced ease. “Phew. Sorry, uh—Buggy, right? The crew knows better than to stand so close to the mast when the watch changes, and I didn’t think to check before I jumped.”

“Jumping from the crow’s nest for fun.” Buggy shook his head. “And here I thought you people were almost respectable.” Yasopp, the maniac, cackled. Beckman, drifting down to the deck on his own rope mechanism, in a much more orderly fashion, chuckled a little.

“It’s possible we’ve been on… well, not our best behavior. Let’s call it better behavior than usual, these last few days,” Beckman admitted. “Except for Yasopp, who doesn’t know the meaning of the concept and so stays up in his nest.”

“You haven’t been on your best behavior, you’re as mean as ever,” Yasopp said, putting on an over-the-top pout.

Beckman rolled his eyes. “Because I need to be, to get anything done around here,” he said. “And you need a break. Drink, talk to people, tinker with one of your ridiculous trick bullets, I don’t care, just—let someone else keep an eye on things for a few hours, okay?” He nudged Yasopp in the side with an elbow. “Or are you gonna say you didn’t train your juniors well enough at their job?”

Yasopp crossed his arms, sulky. “No,” he conceded.

“Good,” Beckman said. Giving Buggy an apologetic grimace as he untied himself, he said, “I trust he’s apologized to you already?” His tone suggested that if he hadn’t, Yasopp would soon regret it.

What a mother hen of a first mate, Buggy thought, fighting down a smile. “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” he said, shrugging off the incident like it hadn’t carved a decade off his lifespan. “I should’ve known you people had to be at least a little crazy, since you run around with Shanks.”

A small smile crossed Beckman’s face, and Yasopp muffled a snort of laughter in a fist.

Someone called out in a panicky tone for Beckman from a far corner of the ship, and the smile fell off his face. “If you’ll excuse me?” Not waiting for a reply from either of them, Beckman ran off.

“So mean,” Yasopp said, fondness creeping into his voice.

“That’s first mates for you,” Buggy said, unable to keep a similar fondness out of his own voice. Shanks had done a good job finding this guy. When you grew up with the gold standard first mate (or, heh, the Silvers standard?), it was hard to find someone who could measure up. “Keeping things in order when your captain’s lost his head.”

Yasopp chuckled. “Ah, the boss isn’t that bad off.” When Buggy gave him a skeptical look, he smirked. “Lost his heart, maybe, but he knows where his head’s at.”

“You—” Flustered, Buggy cleared his throat. He’d really just gone and said it. “You’re a lot less subtle than the rest of your crew.”

Yasopp shrugged. “I leave subtlety to subtle men. I’m not built for it; I’m built for getting to the heart of the matter, and doing it fast.” He extended two fingers towards Buggy, lifted his thumb into the air, and twitched his hand like it was a gun recoiling. “We both know where things stand. What’s the use in dancing around it?”

“Sure,” Buggy muttered, his thoughts going back to what Beckman had said. What was it Shanks both didn’t want to tell him and needed to tell him? What was there left unsaid, besides the sort of thing Buggy had already decided didn’t need saying? He crossed his arms. Damn it, he’d been trying to avoid thinking about this shit!

“Hey,” Yasopp said, snapping his fingers to draw Buggy’s attention. “You work with bombs, right? You make them yourself?”

Welcoming the change in topic, Buggy scoffed. “Of course,” he said, “only an idiot trusts the kind of weapons manufacturers who are willing to sell to pirates to make explosives that are good, reliable, and cheap, and I have better things to spend my money on.” He narrowed his eyes at Yasopp. “Why?”

“Because Beck just gave me permission to tinker with my trick bullets, and if you make your own explosives you might be able to figure out what I’m doing wrong with this one.” Digging around in one of his oversized ammunition pouches, Yasopp presented Buggy with an unusually lightweight cartridge. “Here, what do you think?”

Buggy cracked the cartridge open, curious. Inside, there was a silvery-black gunpowder and a thin-walled hollow bullet, which proved to have some other kind of powder inside. Buggy pinched that powder between two fingers, rubbing them together to feel the grit and then sniffing at the residue left behind. He stared at his fingers, baffled, and smelled them again. “What is that, aluminum and an ammonium salt?” Yasopp nodded. “Are you trying to make a cartridge that explodes in the barrel?”

Yasopp sighed, running a hand through his locs. “What I want is a smoke bomb I can fire out of a gun. What I’m getting is… that, more or less.”

“Yeah, of course you are, a big velocity change ignites this stuff easily. With a different catalyst, though, or maybe a better sealed chamber…” Buggy trailed off, considering the bullet. A miniature smoke bomb, huh? Something that could stand up to the initial shock of gunfire, and turn to noise and powder on impact… “Do you have a chem lab around here somewhere?”

Yasopp grinned.

The two of them didn’t emerge from Yasopp’s workroom until the bell rang out announcing last call for lunch. Buggy wasn’t sure he’d ever get the metallic burnt smell out of these clothes, but he didn’t care; it had been fun, the kind of idle messing around with explosives that he hadn’t had time to do in years. Buggy hadn’t realized how much of a man’s free time it ate up, captaining even a smallish crew, until he’d gotten a fraction of that time back.

“Too bad we didn’t figure out a solution for your smoke bullet problem,” he said, dusting the last of the gunpowder off his shirt sleeves.

“Eh, I’ve been working on this on and off for months, it wasn’t gonna be an easy fix,” Yasopp said, shrugging his star-spangled cloak back on. “But it got both of us out of our heads for a few hours, so I’d hardly call it a waste.”

Buggy blinked at him, frozen with one arm in his jacket. “Both of us?”

“You were fretting, I don’t know what about. Shanks, at a guess. And I… well.” Yasopp grimaced. “Beck doesn’t always have to toss me out of the nest, but…”

Buggy frowned, sliding the jacket up his other arm. “I wasn’t fretting.”

Yasopp gave him an unimpressed look. “Sure. That frown just pops up for no reason every hour on the dot, then?” When Buggy scowled at him, Yasopp said, “I’m not a subtle man, remember? If you want someone to go along with your lies, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”

Buggy sighed. As Yasopp locked the workroom up behind them, he admitted, “It… was good to get out of my head for a while.” Yasopp nodded, and they left it at that.

Lunch was a bit less exciting than the past few days had led Buggy to expect: the fried rice with pickled cabbage and ham that had been served with Shanks’ breakfast was the main dish on offer, with other repurposed leftovers making up the rest of the meal. When Roux wasn’t looking, Buggy gave him a curious look. The rest of the crew had been on their best behavior, according to Beckman… so, had Lucky Roux been showing off? If he had, it had worked on Buggy; he still wanted to poach Roux for his own crew, even if this less impressive offering was his usual fare.

Eating his bowl of rice with a couple promising-looking toppings—all well-seasoned and delicious, of course—Buggy made his way out onto the main deck. A few Red-Haired and Whitebeard Pirates glanced Buggy’s way, but most of them had gotten used to Buggy over the last few days and returned to their meals without paying him any mind. He peered down at the lower deck, crowded with men in worn prison uniforms standing in surprisingly well-organized clusters of twos and fours, finishing their lunch.

“Afternoon, men!” he called.

“Captain Buggy!” they cheered.

“Let’s see,” Buggy said, and on a whim set aside his bowl to chop off his feet and swoop down, close enough to excite his men but just out of reach. “Aren’t you arranged all nice and orderly? It looks like you did as I asked.”

“Of course!”

“We’d do anything you asked, Captain Buggy!”

Buggy grinned. Music to his ears. “Then I suppose I should reward you, shouldn’t I?” A few excited sounds rose from the crowd as Buggy returned to his spot on the deck above them. “Hm… I’ve told you plenty about the legendary old days, and many stories of the great Captain Buggy’s crew. But there’s someone I’ve yet to introduce you to, a captain who’s been allied with me and mine these last few months.” Someone who might need some convincing to cooperate with the sudden appearance of all these guys… and who was more eager for praise than even Buggy. “Let me tell you how the strong, beautiful Iron Mace Alvida saved my life.”

A hush fell over the crowd.

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking: the great Captain Buggy, in need of rescue?!” The wide-eyed stares Buggy received confirmed this. And by the look of it, some of the men were mentally tacking on the phrase by a woman? to that question, as he’d suspected they would. Yeah, best to nip that potential problem in the bud. “Well, I’d been through a terrible trial in the days leading up to our first meeting. Separated from my crew, from my body, alone on a half-wrecked ship, starving, a vicious sea monster rising out of the waves before me, his many-toothed maw dripping with drool, eager to eat me—when suddenly! A great iron mace came down on his skull!” Buggy slammed his lunch bowl against the railing, the crash of metal on wood drawing the eye of every man below.

Buggy grinned. If they hadn’t been hooked before, they sure were now.

He fudged some of the details, of course—no need to reveal exactly who had put him through that terrible trial, or how his crew had behaved in his absence. But the broad strokes were true, and the changes he made were in support of his reason for telling the story: to convince these guys to respect Alvida, to flatter her as they did him, to make this joining of forces go as smoothly as possible. Sure, it didn’t put Buggy in the best light, at least not at first, but he didn’t want Alvida taking a perceived slight out on a man who might be able to stand up to her mace. If revealing one of his weaknesses was how he avoided that disaster, so be it.

He was just reaching the ‘rescuing his crew from cannibals’ climax of the story when a cry rang out from above: “Land ho!”

Finally. The relief that rushed through Buggy nearly made him cry. After all the many hells he’d been through since being arrested… things could finally start getting back to normal.

“We’ll continue this story after we disembark,” Buggy announced to a few disappointed groans from his men. “Find your buddy if you lost track of him during lunch! Make sure you both have everything you’re taking with you! Stay out of the Red-Haired Pirates’ way while they get us to shore, but be ready to leave the second we’re docked!”

“Aye, Captain!”

Of course, it couldn’t be as simple as that.

Buggy found Galdino sitting in the empty galley with Lucky Roux, making polite conversation over a pot of tea. Though, with these two, it might not actually be the conversation it seemed to be—something about the island Roux sourced his tea from? Apparently it was a distinctive blend, and hard to acquire.

“Did you need something, Buggy?” Galdino asked, an undertone of irritation to his voice. Because of course Buggy needed something, why else did he ever seek Galdino out?

Well, if Galdino didn’t want to be used, he shouldn’t have made himself so useful.

“The dock’s gone,” Buggy said. “Either rotted through or swept away in a storm.”

Galdino glanced up at him, and set down his teacup. “Well, at least it’s something interesting. Lucky Roux, it’s been a pleasure.”

“It’s sure been something, having you people aboard,” Roux said with a wide smile. “Hopefully not for the last time.”

Buggy snorted. “In your captain’s dreams.”

Galdino muffled a laugh in his fist; Roux didn’t bother concealing his amusement. Buggy realized how his words had come off, scowled, and stormed out of the galley with a shout of, “Come on, then!”

The two of them joined Beckman and the Red-Haired Pirates’ navigator at the bow of the ship, and considered the space where a dock clearly used to be. A ship this big, and an island with such a sharp drop from shore to sea? They wouldn’t be able to land without a dock.

“Can you do it?” Beckman asked.

“I’ll need to begin from the shore,” Galdino said, thoughtful. “If it isn’t well anchored from the start it’ll drift away.”

“That’s no problem.” Buggy chopped his feet off and leaned forward, letting Galdino sit cross-legged on his back. He flew them to shore, where Galdino made some long wax spears that Buggy wedged into place. When they were securely dug in, Galdino melted the tops of the spears and, starting from that spot, created more wax to mold into a floating dock. Nothing that would be any good at anchoring a ship the size of the Red Force long-term, but they didn’t intend to be here any longer than necessary. So long as it could hold firm while the men disembarked, that was all they needed.

While Galdino worked, Buggy hovered above the treetops, looking for any kind of promising spot to settle his men. He quickly spotted the ruins Beckman had mentioned—several of the old buildings were tall enough to be seen well above the canopy, the gray of the stone standing out against all the greenery of the jungle. There was one with a large paved area around it, not far from the shore, which seemed promising. Buggy took a moment to fix the spot in his memory, then flew back to tell Galdino about it.

Galdino was confident enough in his work to stand on the dock as he was building it, a foot or two of wax all that separated him from the awful, helpless death that awaited any Devil Fruit user in the ocean. It was bold of him; Buggy preferred a nice, reliable boat any day.

“Any messages to pass on to the men?” he asked, hovering at Galdino’s shoulder.

“They’ll need to be light on their feet, and balanced,” Galdino said. He was starting to sweat; extruding this much wax in one go seemed to take a lot of effort. “If their weight isn’t balanced, one wrong move could capsize this whole thing.”

Buggy blanched. Yeah, he could never. “Noted,” he squeaked, and flew back to the Red Force to convey these instructions.

Despite Galdino’s warnings, the disembarkation went well. Buggy watched with no small amount of pride as the buddy system worked beautifully, each pair of men racing down the gangplank, across the waxen dock, and onto the shore without any signs of a bottleneck developing. Being listened to was nice—it was very nice—but being listened to, having your orders followed, and seeing them work exactly as you imagined, now that was heaven. Buggy might not be the strongest pirate the world had ever seen, but damn it, he was good at this shit.

Galdino, standing on the shore watching the men run past, looked equally pleased. As he should; he’d done good work. Buggy had a feeling the two of them were going to do great things together. Terrible, illegal, immoral things, no doubt, but undeniably great.

As the last dozen pairs prepared to leave the Red Force, Buggy felt a gentle weight press down on his foot. He frowned, tried to remember where he’d left his feet, and only then noticed a presence on the main deck that made his hackles rise.

Shanks.

“Are you holding my feet hostage?”

“That depends,” Shanks said, giving Buggy an unreadable look. “Are you leaving without saying goodbye?”

Oh, this guy. On his own ship, surrounded on all sides by his most trusted officers, and still managing to look like some kind of miserable wet cat, terrified of being abandoned.

“And how was I supposed to say goodbye to someone hiding from me?” Buggy asked, instead of a dozen meaner things. Shanks glanced away, suddenly awkward, and Buggy took the opportunity to look him over. The shower had done him good, gotten him clean of all that secondhand makeup—though it had not, Buggy noticed with a quiet little thrill, removed the bruises that had apparently been hiding underneath some of that makeup. His hair looked nicer, almost healthy, even pinned back by the sunglasses Shanks had propped up high on his forehead. “Are these the shame glasses I’ve heard so much about?”

Shanks’ hand rose to fiddle with the temple of the glasses. “Ah, yeah.”

“I thought your crew was supposed to laugh at you while you were wearing them?”

“They’ve been laughing at me, all day,” Shanks said, tired. “And they’ve been right to, given… everything.”

Well, that was ominous.

With a sigh, Shanks said, “There’s something I should have told you earlier, Buggy, but there never seemed to be a good time, and… I didn’t know how to say it.” A sheepish smile pulling at the corner of his lip, he said, “I still don’t, to be honest,” and pulled the sunglasses down over his eyes.

It took Buggy a moment to put it together. Shanks’ discomfort, the way the large mirrored lenses took up so much space on his face, the nervous twist of his lips… then Shanks ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and it clicked. Buggy got up in Shanks’ face, looking past his own wide-eyed reflection to confirm that spark of recognition. Shanks backed up, Buggy reconnected to his own feet, and at this angle… yeah, he knew that face. He’d kissed it, once.

(Oh fuck, he’d pickpocketed that guy, too.)

Fighting down a hysterical burst of laughter, Buggy said, voice high-pitched from the strain, “Well, uh, thanks for the ride, Shanks! I’d say I owe you one, but I’m pretty sure you still owe me another two or three dozen favors before we’re even.” He backed up, hands brushing along the railing as he inched towards the stairs, and beyond them the gangplank, the dock, the island, freedom.

(Somewhere he could have a little breakdown about this little… revelation, in private.)

“Buggy…” Shanks cautiously held out a hand.

Buggy pulled back out of reach. “I’m not saying goodbye to you, Shanks!” he snapped. Shanks faltered, his hurt visible even past those ridiculous sunglasses, and Buggy sighed. Did he have to spell it out? “Stupid. I already told you.”

Yes, they were parting ways now, but he’d see Shanks again. In East Blue they hadn’t been able to stay apart for good no matter how they’d tried. It would be the same way in the New World. Buggy was sure of it.

Shanks frowned, visibly confused.

Well, either he’d figure it out or he wouldn’t. Buggy rolled his eyes, spun around, and ran off. Over his shoulder, he promised, “Until next time, Red-Hair!”