Chapter Text
Our ship we crest a giant wave
And crashed to the trough below
And the crew held on to what they could
They were damned if they let go
The rain and sea and storm winds
Crashed against our ship with wrath
And from the deck of that cursed ship
We could hear them laugh
(The Flying Dutchman ~ The Jolly Rogers)
They are fifteen.
They are fifteen and their (father) captain is dead, and their crew is disbanded and they are alone.
(They left them they left them they are alone they are being hunted they left them--)
They are fifteen and they have been (alone) on their own together with their crazy ship for a year (because Speed had to be crazy, crazy and vicious and protective, they’d have been dead more than ten times over if she wasn’t) and they have heard a rumor.
They are fifteen and they are (abandoned) on their own and they have heard a rumor that their (father) captain had had a child-- a child the Navy wants dead.
Buggy and Shanks are fifteen and they are headed to an island called Baterilla, in their crazy ship, chasing a rumor while running from their (father’s) captain’s enemies that are hunting them down. Because it doesn’t matter if the rumor is right, because people are being hurt in their captain’s (father’s) name, because the Marines are hunting an innocent child who never did anything except being born to a man they were fucking terrified of even after his head hit the ground (and fuckfuck fuck that hurt to remember at all, the sound echoing--)
Shanks and Buggy are fifteen and chasing a rumor while being hunted, because they are children who have been forced to grow up too soon too fast, because they feel fucking responsible for the people being hurt, because they are intimately familiar with being an easy target for someone with a vendetta against a dead man who was larger than life itself. (Fuck Tavernier and the rest, seriously.)
They are fifteen and they are chasing a rumor, because if it is true, if their (father) captain had a kid on that island in South Blue, they will never forgive themselves if they don’t try.
(They are fifteen and they are chasing a rumor, because if it is true, they are going to do better for that kid than the Roger Kaizoku have done for them, because they are fifteen and they have seen their (father’s) captain’s head hit the ground and they have grown up too fast too soon and they swear on the Sea that if they get there in time they fucking refuse to repeat the mistakes of the adults that abandoned them when they were supposed to protect them.)
…
They arrive too late.
Shanks is slumped against a tree with Captain’s hat covering his eyes and a bottle of cheap booze clutched in his hand. He’s not asleep, not even close, not when every time he closes his eyes all he can see is little bodies in little graves and families torn apart and an entire island of people who will never be the same again after this (he takes a few more gulps at the thought).
They’d gotten there too late, after the Marines had already left, when the only thing left to do was bury the dead. (He didn’t know what they would have done, what they could have done, if they had gotten to Baterilla earlier, while the slaughter was still going on, but damn it all , they could have done something! ) Shanks and Buggy had spent the last three weeks covered in earth and sweat and helping anywhere they could. Every time someone thanked them felt like a punch to the gut, and the next time someone told them it wasn’t their fault Shanks swore he was going to puke all over their shoes from the guilt roiling in his stomach. (It had nothing at all to do with the shitty alcohol he’d been drinking like water since they got here, shut up Buggy. ) It was why they were out here, in a small clearing in the woods away from town. To get away from gratitude they didn’t deserve from people who were made to suffer in their (father’s) captain’s memory.
A gloved hand plucked the bottle from his fingers, and Shanks let out a noise of tipsy protest. Buggy snorted, shook his head, and took a swig himself. He hadn’t had near as much as Shanks, mostly because his alcohol tolerance wasn’t anywhere near as high. He hated how the stuff dulled his senses, slowed his reaction times-- they couldn’t afford for both of them to be sloshed, but even Buggy had to admit that the buzz helped, for a while.
“What’re we gon’ do, Bug?” Shanks slurs quietly after a moment staring at the inside of his straw hat. Because he really has no idea, and he’s drunk, and Buggy is better at planning and strategy and that shit anyway.
A deep sigh answers him, the kind that comes from being exhausted down to your bones and knowing you had to keep going. Green eyes stare hard at the bottle in his hand, as if the answer would rise up like a bottle in the ocean. Staying here was out; the locals wouldn’t have a problem with it, likely, but the guilt and constant reminders would shred Buggy and Shanks from the inside, and Captain’s other enemies would catch up eventually ( fucking Tavernier--! ).
They weren’t made for land anyway. They were Children of the Sea, of Davy Jones-- staying on land was counter to everything they were, all they were made of. So, no, they couldn’t stay. They would help with the gravedigging and the funerals and the repairs, and then they would climb aboard the Red Speed and head out to sea, probably significantly less sober than when they’d arrived. Where they would go from there was the question.
Buggy took another sip while he thought, letting his Haki spread out like he deliberately hadn’t since they had come in range of Baterilla and he had been slammed by the fear grief anger of the people and Buggy had been so overwhelmed by it he’d fallen to the deck and fucking sobbed. It was still awful , still there, but almost a month of lower-sensitivity exposure meant Buggy didn’t feel like he’d suddenly dropped a boulder of other people’s emotions directly onto his lungs. They were far enough into the woods that most of what he was sensing was animals, but there was one Voice, strong and clear and even deeper into the forest, that was familiar for all Buggy couldn’t place it.
And that? That was weird, because he knew who it wasn’t (wasn’t any of the Roger Kaizoku, didn’t set his hackles rising and his instincts screaming to escape like Tavernier and his lot, and it was too strong to be any of the townspeople he and Shanks had met) and he found himself lowering the bottle and standing up and kicking Shanks in the leg until the other boy was doing the same.
Because Buggy didn’t know who that Voice belonged to, but he did recognize it, and considering why they were there in the first place, that meant it ought to be investigated.
One very unpleasant hike later, the owner of the Voice was apparently just as flabbergasted to see the two of them as they were to see her.
“You!!” Buggy screeched, pointing dramatically at the obviously pregnant pirate captain. (If he had been any less tired, or any more sober, he would not have pointed. Because it was rude, and she was terrifying, but he wasn’t, and he did.)
“Cap’n Rouge?” Shanks was wide-eyed, gaze bouncing from her face to her belly and back again, his alcohol-washed brain clearly having issues processing what he was seeing. “What’re you doin’ here?”
Rouge sputtered-- sputtered! “What am I doing here? What are you two doing here?!” She paused, squinting suspiciously at the redhead swaying slightly on his own feet. “Shanks, are you drunk?”
“Pft, nooo!” Behind him, Buggy was pointing in his direction and nodding emphatically, exaggeratedly mouthing the words ‘drunk as a skunk.’ Shanks didn’t notice.
The woman sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose in a no doubt futile attempt to stave off her impending headache. “Get the hell in my house, you brats. We need to have a talk.”
Talk, they do. It’s not short, or pleasant, and the captain of the Blackjack Pirates confiscates their shared bottle of shitty alcohol within the first ten minutes. (Buggy had been taking small swigs, so he’d have an excuse to talk less, but Shanks had decided that he wanted the bottle back and had grabbed for it but was still intoxicated enough his aim was shit, and they ended up tussling on Blackjack Rouge’s livingroom floor with Buggy shamelessly exploiting his devil fruit to gain the advantage. The woman had cheated, really-- and after he separated his hand from the rest of them to keep the booze from spilling on her rug! Dumping the rest down the sink was equally uncalled for, so it was her own fault she had to deal with them both pouting about it.)
They got the basics out of the way first: Yes, she was pregnant. Yes, the baby was Roger’s. No, she was not telling them the story, no matter how much they looked at her like that. Yes, the boys were here because of the rumors, and yes they’d been helping the people in town, yes they were here on their own and no the other Roger Kaizoku were not with them and probably were not terribly likely to show up.
That last part led to the perfectly valid question of why , which was not a topic either teen wanted to discuss but they had to (and, incidentally, Shanks rather wished for some more booze at that moment thank-you.)
“They left you? ” Rouge hissed, after getting the rough version of what they had gone through the last year or so.
“Yup,” Buggy said flatly, stuffing the emotions attached to that answer into a box to deal with later. (Because he was not going to have a breakdown in front of Captain Blackjack D. Rouge, he was not. )
“They fucking left you. Alone. In the New World. ” Buggy nearly snarks back, because yes, he’d just said that, rub it in why don’t you, when it hits him that oh. Oh, she is angry. Possibly even furious . Not at them, though-- not at Buggy for coping by being a wise-ass, not at Shanks for being respectably drunk on her couch and still staring at her abdomen like it was going to spontaneously grow teeth and bite him on the nose, but on their behalf . And that… that was different.
It was… actually kinda nice, for once, and Buggy honestly wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Rouge inhales through her nose, holds it for ten seconds, then slowly exhales through her clenched teeth. (Oh yes, definitely furious, Buggy notes.) “Alright. Well, it isn’t alright, and I am going to be having words with Silvers Rayleigh at some point, but first things come first. The Marines have left the island?”
The boys nod, Shanks a few times extra and looking a bit like a bobble-head.
“You two have a ship?”
More nodding.
“Then get us out of here,” Rouge says solemnly, one hand over the little life growing in her belly, “and I swear by Davy Jones, there will be a safe place for you both with me and mine for as long as you want it.”