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Kid and Killer sit on a lichen-crusted ledge, kicking their feet at the end of the world. Killer cradles his crinkled mask between his bleeding hands, and, after an achingly long silence, drops it into the sea. It whistles in the air, a mourning song ended by a lonely splash. “I'd do it again,” he croaks, pressing undying loyalty into his voice until it bleeds out of his aching tear ducts. “I'd do it all again.” Kid turns to him with sunken eyes. His goggles are cracked down the center and lay in his lap. The Victoria Punk is cracked down the center and lays weeping in the lap of the New World's sweet sea. No one ever told them that the end would be so lonely. They'd found a crew long ago with the full intent of going out in a glorious typhoon of crimson defiance. Instead, the sun tilts soft as silk across the ocean. A sweet breeze embraces their refuge. “Nah. If we did it all again I wouldn't let any of those fuckin’ SMILE fruits near you,” Kid promises lowly, and in a roundabout way it's another apology. When he gets no response, Kid reclines on his remaining arm—his powerful prosthetic, his finest project, was blown apart in their final battle—with creaking ribs denying him ease. He stares unseeing at the sky once his vision stops leaking out of his lacerated body. “Strawhat is gonna make it to the end,” Killer says instead. Hours ago he would rather reassume the mask of Kamazo and lose himself to empty-hearted scythes than speak such mutiny, but now it is just an observation. “Sonuva bitch,” Kid grumbles in agreement. One pirate looks to the other. Can they be called such anymore? “You won't jump off, will you?” Killer asks, and can only pray for the answer he wants. The urge to join their crew is there and growing unchecked, and he needs to be tethered. Kid realizes with a feeling of churning bile that if he did leap to one final freefall, Killer would join him with a candid smile. “No, and you won't either,” Kid says. Begs, really. A slowed, relieved breath escapes Killer rather than words. By sunset, Killer's shock lightens and he is able to stand. His vision blurs with sweat and tears and blood loss, but he's getting used to it. He uses Kid's shard of flint to start a fire and hauls his weary captain away from the edge. They take turns waking up screaming, that night. Entire days pass without a thing said between them, on the island that will be their grave. Others, they never let silence sit for fear of it rooting in their minds. Killer's shirt is a casualty of the first day, tied into bandaging for the worst of their injuries. It's the best option they have, to die in as little agony as they must. The captain's log has to be dried in the sun for a spell, but in it they write in ash the name of everyone aboard the Victoria, from cabin boy to captain. Cremation was always the way of the Kid Pirates, but in their shattering they were cast to the waters. A name in charred driftwood is the closest thing to funeral rites they'll ever get. They survive. It's all they can do. In a twisted gift from fate their graveyard is lush and ripe, and as they waste away they want for nothing. Animals, fruit trees, fresh lumber and stone. Anything but Heat's party tricks and Wire's wine-dry wit. Every morning Killer wets his hair, rakes his fingers through the knots, and passes sections over themselves in a bastardized braid. It's a routine he can cling to in the quiet hours Kid is hunting on the other side of the island, so that his mind cannot wander to what he has become. He watches the sea when he has nothing better to do, pretending with everything he has that the choking weight hanging from his ribs doesn't drag him further down with every passing day. Kid reappearing from the forest startles him back to life. It's as they sit, digesting for a while after eating a breakfast of roasted bird drumsticks for the thousandth time that the second sun rises. What? They watch in sinking awe as it grows and writhes into a new form. “That's a ship,” he whispers redundantly. “That's Strawhat's ship,” Kid adds, “and they're coming this way. I take it back, let's go jump off the damn cliff before they get here.” Killer cocks an eyebrow at him. His bangs mostly cover it, but Kid reads him so naturally he feels it like his own and scoffs. Neither of them make any move to stand. Like dying stars, they sit on the sand and wait for fate to swim in with the tide at noon. He reaches them, inevitably. He flings himself to their feet before his ship can even drop her anchor. “Eh? Jaggy! What are you doing here?” he asks, all smiles and hope and unshaken confidence. Kid’s hackles twitch up from the second Luffy stands before him. “None ya fuckin business, asswipe. Maybe I'm just havin’ a vacation,” he snarks, just to be difficult. Luffy sees right through him, it feels like. His eyes go deep and his smile drops off his face, but he doesn't say anything. “Don't think I can't see the misguided pity party you're cooking. Cut that out right now, or shove it up your ass,” Kid threatens, but even to himself it feels half-hearted. A rivalry of captains is less fun when he has no crew to call him by the title. “Okay, no pity. Have lunch with us instead!” Luffy cheers, already bouncing off into the heart of the island. Kid and Killer stand, dumbstruck. “Dumbass,” Sanji grumbles. “He means that you're welcome on our ship.” Kid bristles, as is his natural reaction to anything Luffy says. Killer shoulder-checks him and glares. Beneath instinct they both know they're easy pickings right now and Luffy could decide any moment to take out some competition. Eyes drawing to him also reminds Killer that his mask is rusting on the ocean floor and his marble statue grin is seen by all. In the cresting tsunami of shame and panic that follows, his chest wraps around a tumbling laugh. Of course being around people again would set off an episode. He looks frantically to his captain, his partner, everything he has left. The recognition flares in Kid's eyes as his laughter carries on without end. “Get the fuck outta here,” he snarls first and foremost to the lingering Strawhats, who'd finally gotten off the Sunny. They offer the courtesy of following their captain into the woods to explore while Killer chokes. Kid presses their foreheads together until it stings, a grounding pain Killer is all too happy to latch onto. This, they've found, is all Kid can do to help. Otherwise, they just have to wait it out through minutes measured in hacking howls. Killer comes up for air, finally. He heaves, then slows to huffs, then slides down to rest his eyes in the corner of Kid's broad shoulder. His fits haven't gotten any less draining, even months after swallowing the forbidden fruit. In and out. Eventually he recalls how to cycle breaths evenly. “Strawhat's gotta have some scrap metal around, I'll make you a new mask,” Kid offers, and he doesn't do quiet, but he can do gentle when it's for his everything. “I—Maybe. I don't know what I want, Kid,” Killer whispers to their solitude. “The air tastes sweet, you know. I'd forgotten that.” Always stale air in his prison and refuge, heavy in the stewed presence of his whirlwind mind. The sea breeze sweeps salt across his cheekbones now, and he isn't quite ready to say goodbye to that. Kid strokes his back, drumming fingers between the notches of his vertebrae. “Okay,” he says simply, and once his captain says it, Killer accepts it as truth. “Okay,” Killer returns, and so they stand. Killer finger-combs his hair over his smiling eyes to grant himself some cover, then allows his captain to bring him into the heart of their little island to find the joyous fools. They're…chicken fighting. Strawhat curls around Roronoa's broad, sun-blessed shoulders. Their sniper sits atop the cyborg and jeers colorful taunts. Nico Robin is sitting on the shoulders of another Nico Robin and holding Dr. Tony Tony Chopper securely in her lap. Killer wanders off to Sanji's grilling station, golden hair bouncing in the afternoon zenith. “Any allergies from either of you?” Sanji asks as soon as Killer's in range. “Nah. Want help?” he offers. Sanji's eyes nearly bug out of his head. “No, no, I insist! You're both guests. Guests don't have to help.” Killer nods in easy acceptance, then grabs a pepper from its nearby basket and begins cutting it anyways. The cook looks to him with newfound respect and appreciation, like he's just saved him from a fairytale villain rather than cut a vegetable in half. The dude's standards must be low. Sitting to the side with the others who don't feel like participating in childish games, Kid does not glare withering holes into the shitty flirt cook's back for making moon eyes at Killer. He's just—supervising his first mate. And the fucknut who's burning his arm because he's too busy drooling over Kid’s damn partner. “You're on fire, Blackleg,” Killer helpfully points out. Sanji finally sees the flame licking eagerly at his bare forearm and yelps in pain. Their doctor springs into action. He climbs down his perch using a ladder of gentle hands, then tugs Sanji in the direction of their ship for treatment. “I'm fine, Chopper, and I've got to finish lunch,” Sanji tries. How stubborn. “Kid. Swap with me?” Killer beckons, passing off the knife and seizing Sanji's tongs. They move in the kind of synchronization wrought from a month of surviving with just each other and a lifetime of watching the other's back. Killer doesn't look when he sticks his hand in Kid's direction, grabbing whatever he needs where he knows Kid has put it. By the time Killer has finished grilling the simple mountain of skewers, he has endless respect for Sanji. Luffy is viciously impatient. Kid eventually has to be put on hand-smacking duty just to make sure anything survives. It's so strange. They sit on the ground in a rough circle, and include Killer and Kid like it's nothing. After so long with just each other the boisterous company is jarring. They finish the meal quickly, rushed by Luffy's grabbing hands. “We have a volleyball net back on the ship, come play!” Luffy demands. With nothing better to do, they follow. — “Captain! Log pose is set! Guess it only took a few hours,” Nami calls some time after lunch. She stands from her lounge chair and gestures Jinbe over to her side. A jumble of limbs that could approximately be called human rolls around the ship in glee, stopping before Kid and Killer. “Do you need anything from the island?” “Hah? Uh, no?” Kid says. The question is so out of the blue he can't muster anything beyond honesty, thinking only of their attempted lifeless little stick shack. They'd quickly given up and moved back out under the stars. “Great, let's set sail!” Luffy demands, and on command the anchor dredges up and the ship begins to pull out into the open ocean. The crew buzzes about, tying ropes and loosing sails and getting screamed at by Nami. “Oi Strawhat! We're still on your ship, the fuck are you doin’?!” Kid, who is apparently being kidnapped, screeches. “Did you have somewhere else to go?” Luffy asks, and that easy question shifts the mood beneath their feet with the waves. Their silence is damning. “Your crew are gone, aren't they, Jaggy?” he asks, that same sudden maturity taking over his wire frame. The boyish roundness of his face sinks into firm authority in a blink. He knows he's right. “You look too lost for it to be anything else.” Every strawhat watches and tenses, waiting for Kid to blow up at such a bold claim. Instead, Kid…deflates. He's tired. And Strawhat's right, as much as he hates to think it. “Of course I'm lost. A captain ain't shit without his crew.” Every captain worth their steel knows it and keeps it close to their chest. Killer rests a hand on Kid's shoulder in the only comfort Kid will allow. “We'll hitch a ride to the next island and work out a plan from there,” he says, then jolts and looks to his captain for approval. Kid nods sharply. “Do you even have room for us?” Kid asks, sneering at the Sunny's quarters, much more compact than necessary for such a large ship. Franky appears behind them both, somehow. “Don't you worry about that, bro! I'll whip up a super bedroom for you two in no time!” he cheers, already scribbling designs. Killer sees a disproportionate amount with cannons. “Captain, mind if I just use the captain's quarters? You sleep with us, after all.” “Go for it!” Luffy cheers from the seat he's taken at the head of the ship. Franky disappears quickly into the quarters, where for some reason Killer cannot fathom, an odd mix of construction noise and guitar rings out. Sanji reappears from what must be the infirmary, their little doctor hot on his heels. He's granted a few seconds of tornadoing around Nami before being put to work like the rest of them. The skies look clear to Killer, but if the navigator of a ship says rain then you prepare for some damn rain. Franky reappears. “Room's ready!” he cheers, to Kid's absolute bewilderment. “That was two seconds, the fuck?” He investigates, obviously, dragging Killer with him. It's…a grossly nice room. He's not sure how he feels about them assuming they only need one bed, but they do, so whatever. Soft sheets and warm-looking blankets on a big-ass mattress. A mirror and a basin with two little tubes of lipstick on its edge. Folded neatly on a dark bedside table is a medical mask, a clear offer of comfort. Oh. Killer fights his hair back and hooks the mask on, but leaves it hanging below his goatee for the moment. “If Strawhat wants to spoil us, I ain't complaining,” Kid laughs. It's a dry, forced beast, but it's better than no laughter at all. (That's a lie. Not laughing can be such a mercy.) It's barely afternoon. There's plenty of work that could be done around the ship. Instead, they shuck off their shoes and crawl into a bed too soft to feel safe, and they sleep. When Luffy opens the door to check on them and make them come fish with him, he smiles wide at the sight and leaves them to rest. After losing their crew, they need it.