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He hadn't known Killer was on board at first. They'd docked off near a bustling little city-island brimming in colorful trade and merchant ships, painted tarps fluttering in the wind.
He hadn't seen Kid's colors amongst them, and he's sure he'd have known if he had.
But Trafalgar is suddenly in one of those clinical rooms, his voice muffled by the metal door as Penguin and Shachi press their ears against its cool surface. They'd heard from Bepo that the Massacre Soldier had followed him to the ship, an eery shadow that had the poor bear in tears.
And now Captain was in a room with him. Bepo had wandered off earlier, shivering every time the Massacre Soldier’s deep voice rumbled through.
Suddenly Law is calling for Penguin specifically and Shachi scrambles away, saying this and that about dinner and sponges and cucumbers. Penguin shuffles about at first, before heaving a great sigh and pushing in hesitantly.
In retrospect, it is a bit intimidating. Killer's got a good tear at the corner of his mouth that reveals teeth Penguin's not used to seeing, with old, faded scars tugging at his brow and eye in a downwards fashion, staining his cheek in jagged claws of fleshy pink.
In retrospect, it should've given him pause, but Penguin was a pirate, damnit, and pirates reveled in scars and history. Besides, the other half of his face was rather pristine in every aspect.
Burn victim? Had certainly happened in a time long past.
Killer watches him with those light eyes of his, his bangs shaggy and uneven.
"Killer here wants to look a bit more presentable."
Penguin meets his captain’s gaze with something curious. He’s a pirate, named Killer, whose enigma almost entirely revolved around that creepy, wasp-like mask of his. In what world did he care about daily nuances like battle scars and disfigurement? The scarier you looked the better right? Kid sure seemed to live by that motto.
Penguin was pretty sure it was his damn war cry.
Killer just stares at him, and offers simply, "In the future, to better serve Kid, I may perhaps need to be a bit more inconspicuous.”
Law is beyond amused. He smiles over at Penguin. “Since he doesn’t want surgery, I thought you could use some practice with stitching."
In all actuality the guys weren't back yet with the supplies and so Penguin just smears some numbing cream on the area and gets to work with what arbitrary materials they had left. Killer just watches him, never hinting that he might be the slightest uncomfortable. He's got these really slim legs, Penguin notices, and a nicely pointed chin.
He uses stitching to tug up at the corner of the eye, the lid no longer sloped as an even gaze continues to follow him. Same goes for the corner of his mouth and he feels a bit weird placing his thumb on the older boy's lower lip, gently guiding it open.
He'll have scars for sure here, and since he opted out of plastic surgery he'll need to keep the curvature of the eye stitched in for a good while.
He plasters on an anti-biotic with white tape and slides back on the rolling stool, hands in his lap.
"And you thought I needed practice," Penguin teases his captain. Looks pretty damn good, if he says so himself. He preens a little at the boy that was now gingerly touching his skin. He had a nice shape to his mouth, with this stern brow furrowed starkly against soft features-
Law ignores him. "You'll need to be monitored for a little bit, and no mask for a few days at the very least. Don't need that humidity festering anything unpleasant."
"Then I'll stay here."
Penguin had been caught mid-swallow and splutters instead. Law lifts an amused brow. "Yeah?"
"We'll both be here for a week until the log poses reset, and I'd rather my crew not know at the moment. Kid isn't ever in favor of being subtle, so me fixing my face back up for that very reason won't go over all too well."
"Eustass won't mind your absence?"
Killer shrugs. He’s got these faint lashes on him that don’t belong to such a personality, as if his genetics had attempted to rear him up as a gentle little butterfly, only for nature to kick in.
"Crew members wander off for days at a time often enough. I'll call from a local snail in a day or two."
His captain couldn't seriously be considering this. This was Killer, Eustass Kid's first mate, the bloody Massacre Soldier for god's sake.
"I imagine you'll owe me," Law smiles.
There was nothing Law loved more than an open favor.
"I suppose so," Killer concedes calmly. He should know better. He should know that the last person in this world you want to be in debt to is Trafalgar Law. Penguin feels a smile itch at his face. Stupid boy.
Killer glances over at him and that smile drops without his permission. He was sitting there a bit slouched, with the reputation of a murderer sewn into the lean sinews of his muscles, the sharper edges of his body promising death, scars ensuring trauma.
And yet something stirs oddly in Penguin's gut, something sickly sweet.
Penguin goes to bed that night in their shared cot, Shachi's arm on Penguin’s face as the cook snores with obscene gumption.
He goes to bed that night with that little squirm still in his gut.
Killer comes to the kitchen the second day in, surprising Penguin, who'd assumed he'd just laze about in the spare room.
He asks brazenly for pasta and Shachi makes to lecture him about manners but Killer must have this look to him because the cook blanches and yanks some cabinets open. Killer leaves them be and Shachi is muttering about rude guests and fucking pirates.
Maybe that's why he sends Penguin out with the tray, sauce sloppily splattered over the noodles in apparent irritation. Or maybe because he's scared, and something about that thrills Penguin. Would the other boys consider it dangerous, serving food to Killer?
He doesn't bother knocking, the door cocked open as he pushes on it with his back. Killer is there going through their limited stash of books that didn’t include nude diagrams and muscle charts. He's flipping idly through something thick and ugly, and Penguin scoffs, "Boring?"
"Already read it."
That gives Penguin pause.
So Killer was a reader then. It’s something historical, something one of the maintenance guys had won in a bet amongst the more interesting things. He sits down across the guy, handing him his tray and Killer hesitates.
"Not used to eating without a mask," Penguin asks teasingly.
Killer curls a lips at him. "Don't get too used to talking to me like that.”
Penguin huffs. “Thanks to me and a few adjustments you’re back to looking normal- heard captain even gave you some cream to lighten up those scars-“
Killer’s got a hand to this throat, successfully shutting him up as Penguin stares down at the man in tense anticipation. Small elbows, round shoulders, strong joints- strike the cubital fossa and rear up, blunt trauma to the larynx-
And then Killer’s hand is gone and he’s eating that pasta, slurping it up and Penguin leaves with a tremor that has nothing to do with fear.
Penguin’s never really been afraid of much. Sure, there’s the little things, like starvation and navy admirals, but even then, it’s more like quicksand in his gut rather than whatever this was.
Killer had gone off to the local post where the seagulls roosted, asking after a snail and so Penguin sits there atop the nest of the deck, the submarine partially submerged at the docks.
He catches sight of glinting blonde in the summer sun, watching as Killer makes his way back. He’s got a plastic bag on his arm, the midday breeze tugging at his hair.
“What’s that,” Penguin calls out, Killer boarding with a grimace. Smelled like food.
“Your cook’s food is shit,” Killer deems to call back, and Penguin, legs folded with his hands stuck like pins at the center of them, leans forward with a smile.
“Can I have some?”
“Go die.”
So the fourth day in and Killer’s gone somewhere between Penguin washing up for bed and Penguin fetching water blindly through the dazzling light of the fridge at two in the morning.
That wakes Penguin up.
He leaves the ship in favor of the nighttime of a city that never sleeps. At first he just wanders about, trailing roofs and alleys, sure that he’d come across a shaggy head of blonde.
When he doesn’t he begins to ask after the boy, never entirely sure on what his purpose was.
He finally gets somewhere when a woman smelling of apricots and smoke lures him into a brothel.
“Scars on the right side with some pretty lips,” she asks with a purr, and Penguin can only nod when her dress slips a little.
“He’s already being taken care of.”
Wait.
He was up there with some brothel whore? Penguin hadn’t been made aware of the man’s sex drive- Law had taken the liberty of dissecting Killer’s mind, questioning him until Penguin’s ear had gone numb from being pressed up against the door for so long. Law had confidentially declared him lacking any natural stimulant for sexual intercourse. Captain was never wrong, never.
So Penguin passes her up and she’s yelling after him about the extra fees for threesomes but he pays her no mind, opening random doors until he comes across a naked Killer with a hand around petite wrists. He’s got his hair tied back a bit, thrusts slow and dragging and Penguin just kind of leans there against the frame wondering if it was really as good as that girl was making it out to be. They were paid actors after all.
But then again, was it possible to fake that blotchy red that consumed her ears?
She doesn’t even notice him, legs twitching minutely and Penguin folds his arms, watching them curiously. And then Killer is muttering this is no good and the girl squeaks indignantly. He pulls out, half-hard and Penguin rubs at his nose with a sniff. Bepo had turned up the air conditioner last night and Penguin was suffering for it now.
Killer notices him then, yanking at his pants as he stares at Penguin mid-way. His eyes are too clear for sex, his skin too dry.
So perhaps he did lack sexual tastes.
She’s cursing at him, rummaging through his wallet and he doesn’t stop her, just tugs at his pants and slips on his shirt. She chucks it at him afterwards, and Penguin wonders with a smile if she knows who it is exactly she’s threatening right now.
“Why’re you here,” Killer walks past him, Penguin following after, thrusting his hand into his pockets.
“Why is anyone here,” Penguin hums, “for some fun. Did you have fun, Killer?”
Killer doesn’t retaliate the way Penguin had hoped he would, and so once they’re out there on the cobblestone street, a loud bar dancing in lights just down the road, Penguin tries again. “It’s okay if you didn’t, people like you just gotta find different ways to enjoy themselves-“
Killer’s got his hand to his throat again, and Penguin’s starting to think Killer’s got a thing for choking. “People like me,” Killer watches him, “maybe you’re right, maybe I’d much rather be carving circles into your skin.”
Penguin wets his lips. “Have you ever actually wanted to fuck anybody?”
He's forced onto his tiptoes now, back sliding up against the wall as Killer looks up at him curiously. “What about you?”
Penguin grins, never raising a hand against the man despite his predicament. “Oh, there’ve been a lot of people. Don’t always get my way, of course, I have a tendency to like things that are unobtainable.”
Killer drops him after a moment’s consideration.
“I suggest you fix that habit.”
The day before Killer is supposed to jump ship Penguin finds him flipping through one of Shachi’s nude magazines.
“I always figured I didn’t have a sex drive because of the mask, or because I was too focused on Kid and the crew,” Killer divulges idly, “but now that I’m out and about and they’re suddenly so willing, I still can’t seem to maintain interest. Perhaps your captain is right.”
Penguin plops down next to him on the bunker floor, the cots swaying up above from the pulse of the ocean.
“You ever touch yourself?”
“No.”
Penguin hums. “So you never really fantasize? Best way to tell your type is to take a gander at your imagination. It tends to know you better than you do.”
Penguin stops the flipping by pressing his finger to a page, “Like this girl, for instance, she’s Shachi’s favorite. If they’ve got watermelons for breasts and freckles, he’s ready to go.”
“And yours?”
Penguin snorts. “I’m way beyond these sad little magazines. Nothing can beat the sheer willpower of my imagination.”
Killer’s staring intently at that glossy, 2-D girl, as if trying to find the secret to jacking off somewhere between her chest and her hips.
“Indulge me.”
Penguin’s mind stutters, and then there’s silence up there. Indulge. . . ?
“Why the sudden interest in the little Killer down there,” Penguin asks slowly, “why the interest in things like that at all?”
Killer stares at that girl. “I might die any day right, I think it might be something I’ll regret not doing later- if only my body would agree with me.”
Penguin laughs. “That’s funny, it’s usually the body that leads the mind, not the other way around.”
Indulge him? Penguin and Shachi had never had any qualms jerking off in the same room, hell, sometimes to the same picture back when prints had been enough for him, but this? How was Penguin supposed to properly ‘indulge’ him?
Penguin picks at that magazine and sets it aside, sliding into Killer’s lap before the other has time to reach for any of those knives he might have hidden somewhere.
“Those brothels, the girls that work there, they tend to assume you know what you want, right? Like, they’ll just kinda open their legs unless you tell them to take over, and even then you gotta tell them what it is you want them to do. Maybe you just need it slow.”
Killer doesn’t flinch when Penguin leans in next to his ear, and the younger can only hope the infamous Massacre Soldier doesn’t notice the slight tremble in his arms when he brings them up, draping them somewhat casually over the older’s shoulders.
“I tried slow.”
Penguin chuckles softly, nuzzling into the flesh behind his ear. “And she seemed to really enjoy it, if I had a girl like that under me, with her cheeks all red like that, I’d be in and out in no time.”
Such nice hair, so thick and ready to be yanked.
“But there’s the intricacies in it that you can’t pay someone to understand,” Penguin murmurs against warm skin, and he finds Killer’s hands on his waist, a jolt making him flinch. Killer scoffs.
“You act like you’re a pro and yet just a little touch has you all finicky.”
Penguin sighs, leaning back a little to catch Killer’s gaze, fingers loosely linked behind the blonde’s neck.
“I can’t help it, I mean, you’ve got over a hundred million on your head, you’re the fucking Massacre Soldier, and the number of people you’ve killed just to get to the Red Line- you’re legitimately dangerous. You’ve butchered people with those hands.”
“Are you scared?”
There’s this persistent quake in his body and adrenaline that makes his head fuzzy, a distant tingle in his fingertips.
“No,” he says, “I think I’m really turned on.”
Killer’s watching him far too intently, and Penguin’s sure those eyes had widened just briefly for a moment.
And then Killer almost smirks, head cocked, and so Penguin, whose face is probably just as red as it feels, pushes him down on his back and just hovers there for a moment. He’s never opened his legs for anybody, and yet his imagination really was a damned thing- he wanted to see Killer wrecked because of him, completely gone and needing him, just him. He wanted proof of it somewhere- no, everywhere. He wanted everyone to know that he’d been fucked thoroughly by a Supernova that generally fucked nobody.
More than anything, he wanted Killer to enjoy it.
He’s dutifully wary of the white tape when he kisses Killer, licking into his mouth so as to curl his tongue around Killer’s wetly, hand grasping at a stray wrist that had started to wander lower. Killer growls and Penguin bites that tongue playfully.
The man hisses but Penguin, whose heart is beating far too loudly for rational thought, twitches a smile.
“Just making sure you understand what you’re signing on for,” Penguin breathes, “you put those hands anywhere else and I won’t let you back down. You’re not just going to leave me like you did that woman. You’ve got a responsibility here.”
Killer cocks a brow. “Then you better make sure I enjoy this.”
Penguin’s only response is the unzipping of his boiler suit, the top half pooling about his waist as he skims his lips along that slender neck, his hands threading in thick gold.
He doesn’t stop Killer when those hands dip under his pants, kneading at the back of his thighs and he groans a little into the soft underpart of Killer’s chin, legs trembling. He’d never been touched by a man before, skin rough and calloused as fingers teased his inner thigh.
He swallows, nosing at Killer’s jaw as he hooks two fingers into the front of those tight jeans.
This was a communal area. This was where the crew slept every night, and this was where many rested during the day. He can see sleeping shirts hanging messily from a few of the hammocks.
Hands trail down his legs, thumbs skating behind his knees and then back up again, leaving a strange chill in their wake.
Should he go bolt the door? Would be suspicious.
A noise escapes him without his permission, somewhere between an indignant squeak and a breathy moan. Killer is propped up on his elbows staring up at him, Penguin’s neck still wet from where he’d been bitten.
Killer seems to get the hint, leaning forward to nip at more skin and Penguin clutches the front of that borrowed shirt with his free hand, whimpering once he realizes there’ll be a bruise. He breathes Killer’s name and pops open the button of those jeans, panting wetly into the cotton of Killer’s shoulder when a hand begins to trace his erection through his briefs.
He ducks his head away from that mouth and yanks at those jeans, managing just past the hips before he’s mouthing at Killer’s cock through the fabric. There’s an appreciative grunt and Killer is leaning back to watch him lazily.
The older tugs back on Penguin's hat, not taking it off but removed just enough to see his face as he laps at the heat between Killer's thighs. He's not completely hard yet, rather he's in that complicated phase he'd been in when he'd pulled out of that woman. Penguin, on the other hand, snakes a hand down to his own dick and starts tugging, gasping.
Soon enough he's got that heat in his mouth, thick and pulsing and Killer is just watching him in slight fascination- Penguin likes to think he's received enough of these to know how it works, though he doesn't expect the burn in his jaw as he accommodates the girth of it.
He's starting to think Killer's never had one of these with the way he's looking at him, lips parted and twitching when Penguin drags his tongue up the underside.
He mouths down the side of it and Killer allows his body to fall back fully, fingers gently tugging on Penguin's ear- which is incredibly endearing and makes Penguin stutter a little in his pace and Killer snaps his hips up in surprise when teeth graze the front.
Penguin, whose jaw really does hurt a little, and whose lips are all but swollen, grins unabashedly at this. “Y'know, I'm sorta new at this too, like, I've been with girls- tons of girls- but guys had only ever been a consideration, not a reality."
Killer, with his hair splayed out against the metal floor, only grunts.
Penguin clicks his tongue, intent on disturbing that peaceful pose Killer’s got going on, and stretches himself around his dick. Killer tenses, and Penguin forces himself not to regret the lack of preparation. At least it’d still been wet from his earlier eager antics.
Killer is pressing his thumb hard into Penguin’s hip, coming up only to push Penguin back. The younger boy lets out a confused noise before blonde hair is tickling his shoulder.
“It’s tight,” Killer rumbles.
“Yeah,” Penguin smiles, “well, I’m a guy whose never had it up the ass, so-” he trails off somewhere in Killer’s stare, breathing uneven.
Penguin loses his confidence when Killer nips at his jaw, rearing his hips back a bit, slow and dragging as he’d been with that women. Penguin needs to be quiet, he knows this, had told himself this repeatedly somewhere in the back of his mind, but there’s no way, not when Killer picks up speed and is watching him like that, as if he was trying to figure something out but didn’t have enough of his mind left to do so.
Penguin links his arms around Killer’s neck and brings him down to kiss messily, fingers carding through that blonde hair.
Really, anyone could walk in. What was he thinking-
He tries to stall those noises, the ones that were building up in the back of his throat, but Killer seems determine to draw them out, eyes snapping towards him every time he whines, moans, whimpers-
Killer doesn’t warn him, just suddenly releases inside of him and Penguin flinches at the entirely too-full feeling of it, the temporary and sticky warmth seeping down his thighs.
It’s Killer’s hand on his dick that does it for him, though secretly he wonders if it isn’t the fact that the Massacre Soldier had just come inside of him that’d really sent him over.
Killer doesn’t let his legs down just yet, just kinda staring at Penguin like he’s been apt to do lately, and Penguin feels a sheepish grin growing on his face.
“You seem fine and normal to me.”
Killer seems to take an extreme liking to Penguin's body after that, cornering him often enough for a quick fuck that Penguin starts to get a little sore. But he never stops him, no, because the way he watches him when others are around, the way he pins him to the wall once the other's have gone, the things that he whispers- it's all worth it.
Killer leaves with that mask on, and the sub is silent as if he’d never been there.
Of course, Penguin soon realizes that this course is the only route viable for ships at the moment, and many of the same flags tatter about in the wind at the next island. Eustass would be stupid to skip any stops, unless he had a kink for sour food and blue isolation.
So in a few days time Penguin’s out with two paper bags weighing his arms down, Shachi’s list pinched between fingers as he eyes up some sweets. Suddenly pressure is applied gently to his waist and he doesn’t even need to turn to know who it is.
Would he be wearing that mask?
The woman behind the counter doesn’t appear too frightened, and so Penguin turns about in that grip and smiles.
“Well look who it is.”
He gets dragged into the wilderness that banked the town and pushed up against a tree, the bark scratching at him through the cloth of his suit.
He drops those bags, unabashedly uncaring about the future, about Shachi’s anger at bruised fruits, about Bepo’s oddly intuitive questions regarding his rumpled clothes.
No, those fingers inside of him, that breath in his ear, the soft pants- he doesn’t care about anything.
Three islands later and Killer finally agrees to let him be on top, and he takes great pleasure in dominating the older man, pushing his knees up beside his head, reveling in the way those nails tore into his back.
Four islands later and Killer doesn’t say anything about it, but he unzips Penguin’s suit and it’s not the heat of his mouth that envelops the younger’s dick.
"No one else can touch you there." Killer says it in such a blunt way that Penguin wonders if he knows the implications of what he's just said.
"Oh?"
Penguin cracks his teeth against the candy, the sun bloody now.
"I would've been good looking," Killer admits with this bland tone, "I know that, and I guess I am now, now that I look like how I did back then- but I didn't live my life based on my looks, I lived it based on my reputation. So maybe that's my problem. I need somebody that's attracted to death, not pretty faces."
Penguin was very much attracted to the death that plagued this man, as fucked up as it was. There was something flattering about having someone dangerous keep you around for a good fuck.
"You realize what that's called, right," Penguin jokes, "a relationship."
Killer doesn't respond and so Penguin smiles, "How about this then, let's come to an agreement to not touch anybody else in the meantime, at least while we're both trapped on the same route."
Killer grunts and they sit there on that cliff, legs dangling above the small, red-shingled town below them.
“But still,” Penguin starts after awhile, chewing on his lip. Killer seems to understand.
“If it feels good with you then why do I need anybody else.”
Isn’t it obvious?
“Cause I won't always be there.”
Killer merely shrugs.
“I can wait.”
He's got Penguin hunched over against a wall now, the younger's suit pooled at his ankles as he presses a hand flat against the wall in front of him for leverage. They've only got a few minutes left, and Penguin voices this between gasps. Killer almost sounds indignant when he replies, "There's always time for this.”
Penguin can't help but laugh, the fondness of it not bothering him in the least, body shaking as a familiar warmth fills him and drips down his thighs- really what kind of people have sex in an abandoned ghost town and somewhere in the ridiculousness of it all he sighs a giddy I love you-
Killer had been pulling out but now he stood there, half in and Penguin is almost lightheaded from the sudden blood rush to his head and so he jerks away and scrambles into his boiler suit- "Captain will be missing me by now, it's been good, really good-“
It's raining when he ducks out.
He doesn’t see Killer for two more islands, the chain of floating cities almost at its end before the great big open blue gobbles them up once more.
There’s this horrible tension in his body, an odd pain in his muscles that has nothing to do with health and everything to do with habit and memory.
He needs to release himself of Killer, to enjoy somebody else’s flesh for once in the last month.
So he finds a brothel, a terribly pink one with little hearts and velvet cushions. He almost takes the busty blonde but lets the brunette grab at him instead, leading him up and up and up.
He fondles her, licks at her, touches her- and yet right now he’s the one that wants to be touched, to be manhandled and stretched so wide it burns.
He watches her for a bit, her round cheeks, her wet lips, heavy eyes.
Shit.
He’d fucking turned into Killer, hadn’t he. He couldn’t get hard-
He’s being yanked off suddenly, the girl screaming as she scrambles back, and there’s footsteps on the stairs but Penguin is already out the window, three stories high, as someone yanks him out and down.
He’s thankful he hadn’t been thrown, at the very least- or he is, until familiar bright eyes pin him against a weeping tree.
He's on him, baring his teeth like some wild animal as he snarls, "Thought I could fucking wait and corner you once you left but just the thought of you being in there made my blood boil, let alone actually knowing you were in there.”
Penguin doesn't fight back, mouth tense against his face. "I said something stupid," he says, "I said something really stupid and I'm not gonna wait around for you to tell me that.”
"We had an agreement," Killer narrows his eyes at him.
"An agreement,” Penguin scoffs softly, "yeah, I suppose we did.”
"You wouldn't let anyone else touch you.”
"Well technically I was touching her-“
Killer knocks Penguin's head back against the trunk painfully, growling. "You're mine, you understand that you little shit? If you wanna call it a relationship then fine, do as you like. But this right here, this isn't happening again.”
There’s static in his ears and in his heart.
"Me and you," Penguin asks slowly.
"Me and you.”
Killer had been watching him this whole time, hadn’t he? Had been following him around- what would Penguin have done, if he’d seen Killer go into a brothel?
He’d have lost it too, and unwarranted anger chokes him at the thought.
The landlord yells out the window about the money and Killer growls with murderous intent, saying they weren’t paying and Penguin assumes it’s because the other doesn’t want to solidify in any terms what had just happened, let alone with currency.
She’s about to argue but Killer stands up and she must feel it now, his anger. She backs off, and that heated gaze is on him now.
Killer had probably been trying to punish him in some way, thrusting as hard as he was, fingernails biting his hips, but Penguin's sure he's realized by now that it's not working, that Penguin is so far gone that he can't even control the volume of his own voice. They didn't have much time, and so Killer kisses him hard as he comes, Penguin hiccuping as he's completely and utterly filled.
He doesn’t miss those words being bitten into his neck, bruises solidifying those promises- he was his only his always his.
He laughs through the aftermath of it, kissing Killer’s hair in some rare show of gentle affection, and the Kid pirate only nuzzles further into Penguin’s chest possessively.
He wouldn’t see him for a few good months after that, but Killer had been right. They could wait.