Archive of Our Own

Four months earlier...

There was something slick and legless kissing a trail down his neck, and it had been at it long enough that it was beginning to tickle his collarbone.

But that was the least of his concerns.

The primary issue at hand was probably the bruise blooming along his rib cage. Or maybe the one nearest his temple, because it throbbed with his heartbeat, and he'd seen men with better constitutions drop dead from a bleed of the brain before.

He sniffed to check to see if the wetness dripping onto his upper lip was leaking from a crack in his skull, and was rewarded for his effort by being reduced to a spluttering sniveling mess as pain shot through what he presumed what his broken nose. The taste of iron lodged itself in the back of his throat, only further choking him as he let out a long and miserable moan.

He tried to stop moving, after that. Tried to stop breathing, too, but, well...

The thing was, everything had been going fine.

He'd found a sleepy little village concealed by towering misty mountains and that was just scenically awful enough that no crazed lunatics with black swords or golden hooks had come looking for him there; had taken up temporary refuge in an actual inn, unbeknownst to its keeper who just assumed rats had moved into the attic; and found that, despite technically being a port town where no one stayed very long, the seafarers and merchants that passed through kept all of their pockets full of enough trinkets and Berry to ensure he didn't starve.

He'd spent the last ten months dropping to the floor at every little creak in the floorboards, or whine of an old hinge, and it had been only recently that the notion that Mr. Vain and Sir Pompous weren't closing in on him had eased his worries, if just slightly.

The draw back to finding a relative peace was that, at least when he was petrified and on the run, he'd had something to preoccupy his time. When the fear waned, he found truth in the old adage about idle hands being the devil's workshop...

As was the end of most good things in his life, Buggy's hands moved quickly, and his mouth ran even quicker, and before he knew it — precisely two hours ago — he'd fucked his self-imposed seclusion up for himself by making a false bet and losing in the most spectacular of fashions.

And, well, kids, here's a note of wisdom from the dim, dumb, and daft: Don't wager what you don't believe in, and especially if you don't have a means to pay up should it all fall through. Least you end up beaten, broken, and bruised.

Without much in the way of value on his person at the time — because he'd spent most of it gambling the night before — they'd opted for a pound of flesh, instead and — fuck those guys, really. He hoped they used the money to buy a drink in his honor and then choked on it...

Buggy contemplated all this, specifically the good grace of his own misfortune as he laid there, flat on his back, and sunk deeper into the mud. He splayed his limbs wide, glad to be alive, but even gladder to be able to catch the sun peaking out from behind an ever present rain cloud.

He'd planned to stay like that, for a little while. Maybe until his body and ego felt a little less deflated. Maybe indefinitely.

"Well, I'd say I was surprised to find you like this, but then I'd be lying.”

He couldn't see the person that spoke, too dazed and deprived of sight from where the sun had begun to burn holes in his eyes, but he'd know that voice anywhere, condescending and cruel as it was.

He went to lift his head to confirm his suspicions and ended up hissing in pain as the raw skin around his throat rubbed uncomfortably; gritted his teeth and bore it until he could catch a quick glimpse of black leather pants and the hem of a gaudy pink blouse.

As he feared, Alvida was crouched at the far end of the muck, watching him.

Buggy took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. Blinked them open briefly to find Alvida still staring back, and then promptly shut them again.

His mind, you see, would often bring back ghosts to haunt him. His mother, for instance, followed him for most of his time on the run; had spent

the entire duration trying to convince him to stop, give up, turn his cowardly tail and face his demons head on. Almost convinced him that he'd spent too long as a retched sodomized blasphemer who's only chance at deliverance was to beg for penance, but that he'd most likely still end up consumed by Hell, and... blah blah blah...

He missed her, sometimes. Got lonely with no one to remind you how awful you were every few moments.

Until now, apparently.

“You reek,” was said from across the deluge.

Buggy flicked some filth from his gloved hand and off in the haunt's general direction. When he opened his eyes again, Alvida was still looking onwards, unimpressed, but the splatter had caught her across the cheek and marred the collar of that gaudy pink.

He let his shoulder sink back into the mud beneath him with an undignified squelch. Pressed his back further into the mess beneath him and wondered if Hell could take him now.

“How lovely to see you, too,” he greeted, just as casual as if they were sat for tea back at the Big Top and not currently bathed in waste and wanting. He did not bother to make another vain attempt at sitting up, instead let himself sink a little further into the muck. “If I'd known you'd be here, I might've even cleaned up a little.”

There was no need to see her roll her eyes to imagine it happening. He could see it clearly burnt into his memories, same as the way she was probably following the movement up to the sky for a quick prayer; asking the deity of the day for patience.

The deity was no good at blessings, apparently, if the clear lack of grace or kindness lacing her words was any indication. Even as she mocked him from her pristine little shore and quipped, “Mud is good for the skin. Though, I'd say this particular brand is more piss than earth, at this point.”

He did possess a nose — and a rather large one, at that — and regardless of its current broken state, or how disconcertingly comfortable he was becoming with his current predicament, he could still smell, thank you, Alvida.

“Yes,” he laments, quick to remember that he should be miserable. Liquids have been pooling in his boots for some time now, after all, and he'd been trying very hard to ignore the idea as it soaked through his socks. “It certainly smells that way.”

They lapse into silence for a good stretch of time, to the point where he wasn't so sure that she hadn't left him there to wallow, alone.

She had always said that he was a right cunt when upset. Sulked too much, or some shit of the same. As if she were a perfect fairytale character herself. As if he hadn't held her own hair out of her face as she returned wheat and barely back to the earth after trying to drown her own sorrows.

He resumed his death stare in the direction of the sun, let his vision blur until it was consumed once again by a veil of ominous clouds.

He blinked. Realized that it wasn't at cloud at all, and instead was the upside town vision of Alvida's pretty, round face with something akin to disappointment stretching it at an awkward angle, but Buggy knew better. Or, he'd known better, once upon a time.

Might've even been accused of knowing her well, at one point or another.

He'd almost mourned having lost that connection after she stabbed him in the back and left him to bleed out in front of the wolves.

That kind of betrayal should make him hate her, but he doesn't.

The way she looks at him now, brows scrunched and lips puckered unpleasantly, he might think she feels the same.

It is Alvida that finally stirs the quickly stagnating air around them by extending a hand towards him.

A part of him wants to be childish and tell her to fuck off; to have her leave him be to handle his own affairs, like she was quite familiar with doing in the past, only...

Well....

There may have been something in him that could be persuaded to admit that he missed her, slightly. A negligible little nagging feeling in his gut. Something that bordered on indigestion as it ate away at his chest cavity.

He'd have a burn in his throat in a moment if he kept laying flat on his back, surely.

Yes. It wouldn't do to have a burn of his heart. So, it is was with a deep resignation that he accepted the proffered appendage; pushed his luck, as he had a tendency to do by asking, “Can I be greedy and ask for two?”

The snort that escapes her bordered on being semi-amused, and it came with her sheathing the daggers in her eyes.

Maybe that meant she missed him, too. To think...

With a great amount of effort on both their parts, they finally managed to break the suction binding him to the earth, and it let him go free with a wet slurp, and a deep, bottom belly belch in relief.

“C'mon,” she orders of him, not releasing a hold on his wrist even as he managed to stand on his own two feet again. “You're not fit for a conversation with me in this state.”

He knew for a fact that she'd seen him wear shit on his face and under his nails and all she did back then was tell him to take his shoes off before handing him an ale.

Women... So fickle...

She sets off in the direct of the only bar in the damp, shuttered town, and easily sets a quick pace to match the rest of the folks in the street all trying to make it to their destination before the rain clouds emptied their contents onto their heads.

They garner a fair share of stares despite the bustle, and, logically, he knows they are purely coincidental; can rationalizes that the stray glance or odd double take has more to do with how Alvida's corset constricts her mid-section in a wild display of anatomy and function, and how she wore it with a clear lack of novelty.

Still... He can't help but to look extra carefully around each alleyway they pass; finds he's more careful as they approach other passerby. Loops his arm through Alvida's again and lies to himself that its for her benefit, not his.

Alvida shoot a withering glare over to him, her nose scrunching up with distain, eyes clear with the knowledge of exactly what he's doing. He latches on all the more as she tries to shake him off.

And, fine... He was man enough to say it: He did miss her a little. Fuck off.

“Stop that,” she hisses, takes her sharp nails and pinches the fleshy bit of skin between his thumb and index finger, which leaves him jumping back in equal parts startlement and pain. “I've got an image to uphold, you dunce.” She kicks his shin, for good measure.

The laugh that escapes him isn't cruel, but it most certainly isn't kind, either, and he nearly chokes on his tongue before he can even get out the half-thought insult about prostitutes generally have no need to worry about image.

“That's your karma,” she huffs, before turning on her heel to leave him gagging in the street.

With a good amount of effort, he calms his lungs enough to breathe again, and quickly jogs to catch up as a fine mist begins to settle over the village.

“You managed to fuck over two of the most notorious and feared men in the country! And me!” he reminds her. “There's no harm in embracing your reputation, is all.”

“And what of yours?”

“Mine?” He questions innocently, one hand over his heart in feigned offense. “Oh, it's positively awful. Mothers all over the country cry at the thought that I might bat these pretty blues in the general direction of their daughters.”

He dances over a puddle and nearly knocks shoulders with an incredibly large fisherman on the other side. He doesn't apologize, but does bow low and gives his best smile to the middle-age man, who, he notes, appears to be free of any boils or open wounds on his face. He can't help that his eyes drift downwards as he side-steps around the behemoth, or the look back he does when he's once again safe by Alvida's side.

“Or sons,” he whispers in her ear, once he's sure no one can hear.

She nudges him away. Keeps a safe distance between them, and looks around frantically, much in the same way he had been doing just moments before, but clearly for a different reason.

“Yes,” she practically whines. “And how do you think it would look, the two of us spotted together?”

“Don't flatter yourself. For starters, everyone on the shit-hole of an island knows I'm flat broke after this morning. Secondly, who cares?”

“My husband would!” She practically screams in his face, her cheeks tinged a startling shade of red. She says something else, something about her dowery, and social status; about merchants being bigger gossips than any barmaid would dream...

It takes a moment to pick up that Alvida's voice is drifting farther away, and then another to notice that it's him who has stopped in his tracks and that his boots were beginning to sink deeper into the mud, and that a piece of his tunic was torn off in his hand from how hard he had been wringing it, apparently.

He manages to free his feet with little fanfare. Rounds his shoulders and flicks away the slug crawling up his jaw before chasing after the scent of perfume Alvida leaves in her wake, stumbles a little over his caked boots as he struggled to get the ringing in his ears to stop because —

Married?

Alvida?

What the absolute fuck?

She gotten hitched to a ship baron. The bitch.

The asshole apparently bought her an estate with a rose garden and a view that overlooked the East Blue, promised her his fortune and protection and — he nearly gagged at this bit — his heart, and then went and made an honest woman out of her, yaddy-yadda, etcetera ad nauseum, and the like.

He hadn't been paying attention for some time now. Too preoccupied with his strategy to both ensure his drunkenness while simultaneously downing himself on dry land..

Besides, the mental image of Alvida in a lacey white dress and playing the role of a virgin was laughable enough, and he'd suffered enough brutality for one day, thank you.

(There was also that same nagging feeling that churned the worms in his gut and told him that, now, he was truly all alone. That his ex-ally/ business partner/ conspirator and possibly even friend had abandoned him for some talking wallet with a dick and —

Forget robbing and leaving him to the mercy of Dracule Mihawk and Sir Crocodile, the absolute cunt had fucked her way to the top, and she did it without him and —

He thinks about asking after her new-found husband's proclivity to the male gender, but thinks better of it. Least he come across as desperate. Which he is not, thank you).

After he'd cleaned himself — which was quite the chore, one in which he wasn't entirely sure he got all of the muck out of his ear — Alvida bought him a pint out of pity; a rare gesture of decency from the ordinarily ruthless woman; an ominous sign that didn't bode well if it meant she'd turned to being civil, but a free drink was still a free drink, and he even if he wasn't sure if it was because she felt badly about her the unceremonious way she had made her announcement or not, he drank it greedily.

Once he'd downed about half the content, then, and only then, did Alvida switch the subject from gossiping about her maids in waiting — something that took Buggy a full five minutes to wrap his head around — to the looming topic which dragged her out to find him in the first place.

“Listen, and listen well, because I will only ever say this the once,” she tells him, suddenly very serious.

The rain outside was coming down in thick sheets, and she opted to stare out the window than look at him, her sharp nails tapping on the wood bar top.

The alcohol had initially dulled some of the throbbing in his temple, but it now came back with vengeance. He caught the eye of the bartended and promptly ordered another round on Alvida's dime; being a kept woman surely had its perks, and Buggy, no matter how much he loathed the idea of the whole marriage business, would be damned if he didn't reap some of those benefits, too.

Besides, with the way the woman next to him was breathing heavily from out of her nose, like a mythical creature ready to consume its prey, he'd say that they were going to need all the liquid courage they could get.

“I have found myself more morose, as of late,” she went on. “And have spent a great deal of time looking behind me instead of ahead, and I am, quite literally, sick of it.” She stopped tapping her nails in favor of flexing her hands, and then she turned to him fully, eyes full of everything besides tears, but only because she probably wasn't capable of shedding any, anyways. “I'm sorry. For what happened in Loguetown. Had I known the money wasn't yours alone, I wouldn't have taken it.”

In all the years he'd known her, Buggy had never witnessed the miracle of Alvida admitting fault, much less shouldering blame for herself or, heaven's forbid, apologizing. But here they were... Buggy on his way to getting drunk as quickly as possible, shit-water still sloughed in his brain, Alvida proclaiming to be married (and a Lady to boot), on some dreary island she'd all but exiled him on...

He sat back, brough his pint up to drink heavily, and eyed his co-conspirator warily.

“But you'd have taken it if it were mine alone?”

She shrugged, turned to face the window again, waved a dismissive hand in his direction like she were waving away a certain stench. “In case you failed to realize, what with the business you got into with your two boys and all, I have been skimming from the top for some time now.”

Buggy downs his ale at that, thinks back to the one good year he'd spent living in the lap of luxury while working with his two ex-business partners, and the three very bad months they put him through after Alvida fucked them all over.

A cold shiver runs up his spine, and he quickly grabs for Alvida's pint to down, too.

He considered reaching over the bar top and lifting whatever sat back there to drown himself with, later, but then thought better of it; decided that he'd spent enough time thrown out into the cold for pettiness, and he wasn't about to continue on account of Alvida. Not again.

He settled for crossing his arms to keep them from finding trouble. Took to pinning his companion with what he hopes is his most deadpan of glares to hide any flashes of emotion his bare face wanted to give up.

“If this is your plight for my favor, Al, you're doing a shit job of selling yourself here...”

“Hush,” she said, and turned her nose up as if she was the one with the moral high ground here, in the midst of asking for his forgiveness. “I made a mess for us both, and I am regretful for what I did.” There was a pause wherein she latched onto him and wrenched his hands from under his armpit to hold between both her palms. It took everything in him not to flinch. “I am asking you, Buggy, to find it in your cold, decrepit heart to forgive me so that we might move forward from this awful business.”

“ Treachery ,” he announced rather loudly to the bar, which gained a few curious looks at what surely appeared as something so simple as a lover's quarrel. He ripped his hand back and pointed a finger right in her face. He noted that there was a good amount of mud still clinging under his finger nail. “This awful t reachery . Of which was all your doing.”

Sure, he'd been the one to strike the deal with Mihawk and Crocodile in the first place, but that was hardly relevant in the midst of... whatever the fuck this was....

“Must you labor of the semantics of it?” She reached for her drink only to notice it had been drained, and then turned to wave the bar tender down. “Call it what you will — I acknowledge how I wronged you and I have apologized for it. Can we call a truce?”

A truce in the face of a common enemy didn't found like a bad idea. If anything, he'd rather be mad at Avlida and have her nearby should shit hit the fan than have to suffer it all alone.

The thing was, he wasn't even sure he was mad at her anymore.

But, then again, he spent most of his life mad. Or bitter. Or jealous and, well, look where that had gotten him so far: A lowly life of petty crimes and more kicks in the ass than he cared to admit.

For a while there, he'd thought his luck might've been turning around. It came with two horribly serious men who used him like a play-thing, but it also afforded him security and riches and a more lavish lifestyle than he'd ever had before (which he became accustomed to quite easily, he might add).

If Alvida was here to offer an olive branch (and a means off this wretched little island ((and hopefully a nice state room within her new home that overlooked the East Blue and rose gardens and must have goose downed pillows and possibly even a wine cellar))), then who was he to deny her of this small act of grace.

He would be an idiot to think such a fantasy would actually play out. Good fortune rarely favored him, and Alvida was nothing if not filled with self-interest, much like himself.

Still, he languishes in having the upper hand for a moment longer. Keeps Alvida in suspense, just to be cruel.

Finally, he says casually, “I was unaware we were at war.”

He winks at her, for good measure. Lifts his cup to toast hers, and notes how her shoulders sag minutely from where they had been practically kissing her jaw.

“You are a lot of things, Buggy, but never let any tell you that you are not pragmatic.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

A clap of thunder from outside shakes the liquid in their cups and Buggy's core. It doesn't stop vibrating, and, maybe, now it's time for him to be nervous, too. He reigns the feeling in — plasters a bored expression onto his face and wished that he had a painted smile on right now. Settles for staring into his drink, like it held the answer for how to truly move forward, after everything.

The serious mood rejoins them, and, once again, it keeps moment hung in suspended reality. Tempts them both to let it linger there for a little longer, just enough to let them get drunk and comfortable and unbothered by the pesky matter of the past.

Buggy caves. “Tell me why you're really here, Al, because I know it's not for my favor.”

Alvida is already staring at him when he turns to face her. A deep look of contemplation is stretched across her face, like she isn't so sure which direction they'll go once she starts.

If he wasn't so sure that he was about to be played, he might even assume that she was trying to be mindful of his feelings, but he knows that's not the case. It never was.

“There's a job,” she begins haughtily, like she's being absolutely put out by having to come clean, regardless if it was the whole reason for them being sat there or not. “The payout is substantial. More than enough to settle our debt.”

“Oh?” he says a little clueless. Then, “ Oh... ”

It hadn't occurred to him before, but now he feels like a right idiot for not having assumed it sooner.

He wasn't the only one of the run.

It might even explain Alvida's marriage to a wealthy man with the means and resources to keep her safe and off the streets. A rather solid contingency plan, actually. He finds a sliver of jealously that he hadn't thought to court some well to-do seamstress, but, then again, wooing wasn't really his strong suite, either.

Regardless of how she had just been gushing about her new status and life and fancy pocket kerchiefs, Alivda was exiled from their former home and haunts and henchmen just as much as as Buggy, it seemed. And now she was looking to him to get them both out of the mess she had created.

“Does Crocodile have his eye on this particular prize, too?” He asks, because, well, Crocodile knew everything, and Buggy found it hard to believe that a hit large enough to buy back their favor would run its course through the rumor mill of society's underbelly undetected. He says as much to Alvida. Then, as an afterthought adds, “I think he wants my head for spot, not restitution.

She rolls her eyes at him, but ducks her head conspiratorially, anyway. “He doesn't know. Or, if he does, he doesn't have the means to get the job done.”

Buggy found that hard to believe. The man was wealthy. He had Buggy's men at his disposal. He had Dracule Mihawk, a man feared by the crown itself as an ally. There was very little a man in that position couldn't buy, barter, or steal to get the job done.

“Yes, yes,” Alvida concedes easily to these facts. Buggy huffs and goes back to nursing his ale, all settling the matter. “But what you're not considering,” Alvida goes on to say, anyway, “is that, despite all of his many resources, he lost one of his most valuable.” Her thin, pale hands stretches across the sparse room between them to grab at his own once again. “You see, this is one of those situation were your unique set of skills may be required.”

Her skin is warm, he notices. Any callouses she had a year ago have been softened by a clear lack of any recent physical labor. He glances at her from the corner of his eye and, not for the first time, can see how healthy she looks, now. A little fuller in the face, a rosy tint to her cheeks. Even the dark circles that usually hung in bags under her eyes had vanished.

She could get out for real. Live out the rest of her days in her little safe haven, pop out a couple of kids, play merrymaker and hostess and whatever the fuck it was that women of nobility got up to in their free time.

But, instead, here she was. Tracking him down a hundred and something miles from where all hell had broken loose, practically begging him to rob Peter to pay Paul, like it was the easiest thing to suggest.

He downs the rest of the ale. Summons the bar tender and orders another round on their shared tab. Doesn't feel at all guilty that he is draining the women of her Berry, because, frankly, even if they somehow manage to pay off their debt to the remaining two-thirds of the Cross Guild, she will forever be in debt to him.

“You'll have to be more clear,” he leers, finally. “I have many unique skills,” he waggles his eyebrows, just to annoy her, while simultaneously gives up the ghost to answer her pleas, if for little else than for his own self satisfaction

“Hearsay,” she grumbles, a clear contradiction to the smirk curling her lip. “Your performative skills,” she clarifies, anyway. “And the knack you seem to have with breaking and entering and always getting away with it. There may even be an opportunity for your little flight of fancy with gun powder to be of use.”

Flattery worked for Buggy.

He'd preen like a peacock, if only for the attention of it all. And being the simple man that he was, he responded well to compliments. Sometimes too well. That was, so long as he believed the source that paid them.

Which, he did not, in this case. Not coming from a kindred spirit in all near proximity and too much duration spent sidled together, but it had been a while since someone had lied to him so sweetly.

“Weren't you the one to once tell me, and I am paraphrasing here but the sentiment remains, ' You, Buggy, are a hack in all aspects of your worthless life '?” He smirks at her as she leans further away and crosses her arms in defiance. He chases her forward, shows her all his crooked and stained teeth as he asks, “Were you lying then, or now?”

The bar tender drops their ales, oblivious or willfully ignorant of the stare off currently transpiring between his patrons.

It is Alvida who breaks first. Reaches for her drink and lets her shoulders relax, slightly.

“I think the fact that I am here — apparently wasting my time tracking you down — is enough of an answer.” His former sister in armed robbery leans forward once again as she leers at him this time, and the nearness almost causes them to knock noses, which sends Buggy scuttling backwards and heat raising in his cheeks.

“Listen,” she tells him, grabs at the collar of his shirt and bullies him into ducking his head towards her so she can better hiss in his face, “Unless you are fond of swallowing piss water and living in the dredges of poverty, will you at least consider this gig?”

Her big, brown eyes are searching and serious, but there is a bit of longing that he thinks he understands a little too well because the good old days weren't so old, and they weren't so good, but damn it all if they weren't at least lively. Or, as lively as he'd felt since he was an orphan found adrift as sea and thrust into having a home — as fleeting as it was.

Buggy can't help but wonder what she sees in his own eyes; if she can read his mind as easily as he can read hers. If it even mattered, because the truth of the matter was this: Buggy had already picked up the idea since it was first laid down on the table.

How could he not, after all? The prospect of a few Berries in his pocket was one thing, but it was the tantalizing appeal of the heist — even in its unknown technicalities — that was just too great for him to pass up.

It occurred to him in the past that he might have a gambling addiction. Only, usually his bets were made with his body, in one way or another. And his body always seemed to be fine, after, which only enabled him to keep going — no matter how many times he was sliced or diced or pulled apart at the seams, he always seemed to find himself pulling himself back together again.

He asks, “And the target?”

Alvida looks towards her ale as the bubbles burst on its surface and thinned out along the top, creating little holes to the amber underbelly. “Well, that's the thing,” She peers back up at Buggy from under her dark bangs, a new conviction in her eye and...

Oh, this must be good , he thinks.

He was the one known for stupid and crazy, but if Alvida was the one posing it, well...

Excitement has him on its hook, and it peaks in the pit of his stomach as she says, “It's in the castle.”

And, though consideration wasn't really even necessary at that point, he hides his excitement behind a thin vail of shock.

Steal from the rich to feed the poor was too noble for his liking. Fuck them both, equally, honestly, because neither had ever done much for him.

The mere idea of robbing the rich to shove it up their ass, to make them squirm and panic and run around in their regalia and fineries and worry for their riches, never mind his own financial and personal benefit. Well...

The mental image alone had him sold.

And, so, he thought, yes —I’ve already lost my mind eons ago. Blew it up from one too many failed bombs wherein he added maybe just a little too much gunpowder under just a little too much pressure.

Fuck the rich, because he was hungry. Starved. And Alvida had a carrot dangling in front of his face.

“Enough to settle our debt?” He asks again.

She leans away, crosses her legs and smirks, knowingly. “Aye. And then some.”

“For the difference, I want seventy percent, since it sounds like I'll be doing most of the work.”

“Forty,” she tells him.

Bless the woman. She already played her cards too early. The fault of wanting power too quickly, sometimes. He knew that she needed him. But she didn't know how much he, apparently, also needed her, too. Because he was a good liar. An excellent conman. The possessor of unique skills, as Avlida had preened his ego with, earlier.

“Sixty-five.” He makes no sign of letting up the argument, and grinds his ass further in the wooden chair, staking his claim and intent on the matter. “Take it or leave it. And remember — You need me.” He watches as Alvida realizes a little too late that she'd have to give into his demands somewhere along the way, as per usual. “You said it yourself already, so no point in denying it now.”

There is finality in the way she snarls at him. “You are a right cunt, you know?”

He shrugs, dismissive and uncaring and — maybe a little, tiny bit thrilled at the prospect of getting off this damn island and actually doing something. “It's part of the charm.”

His bones ached in the way that one's do after they're stuck in bed with a fever for too long. His muscles screamed for activity — for motion and action and something for him to sink his teeth into and ease his aching gum.

His partner in crime stands, then. Levels him with a threatening finger. “Save the charming for the plan, clown.”

She tosses a more than sufficient pile of Berries down to cover their tab before turning towards the door. Buggy swipes a few off the top to refill his own empty pockets.

“C'mon, you. We've got plans to make.”