Work Text:
Gecko Moria was not having a great morning. His favourite jam had spent too many days out of the pantry and it had gone bad quite quickly. Then, after taking a second jar of the second best jam they had, he grabbed a loaf of bread which had grown mold during the week. Unfortunately, the doctor wouldn’t come back from the grocery trip until later that evening. Pestered as he was, he took a spoonful of jam and swung him into his mouth and decided that breakfast wasn’t such a big deal.
He went upstairs and into the boat’s dock, ready to set course into their new destination, only to find both a storm upcoming and a flock of seagulls flying around an unresponsive zombie that, seemingly, didn’t obey the rule of not going out into the hull while the sun was up.
He groaned, pulling his face with desperation. He ordered a pair of zombies to pick the body later that evening, and in the meanwhile, he decided it was better to anchor the boat and keep a steady course instead of going headfirst into the storm.
If he couldn’t eat or sail, then he’d go back to sleep. He walked back into his room and climbed back to bed, holding a book in his hand and ordering a zombie to fetch him a cup of coffee. He snuggled against his pillows and threw a hand-knitted mantle over his belly, getting comfortable and settling down to read his novel, when...
“Uhm… sir…?” Absalom’s head peaked from behind the door. He had an anguished look on his half-mutated face.
“What now?!” Moria cried, letting his book down with an angry gesture.
“I, uh… I need you to see something. I was running a report before coming back and I… uh, it’s better if you just see it for yourself.”
Absalom entered the room with uneasy steps and handed him a strange Den Den Mushi he always carried around his neck. It was an unusual breed of snail that had a small projector on its shell and it was able to show the images the eyes captured on it. Absalom tweaked the thing a few times and handed it to his captain. Then Moria went pale, paler than he already was.
“What the hell is this?!”
“I… I found her, sir.” He said, trying not to make eye contact. Moria seemed like he was about to either stop breathing or explode in a fit of anger. Either way, he was turning from red to blue. “Her trail had gone cold for months but I found her again some days ago. The rumors seem to be true.”
“My girl…!” He fumed, making too much pressure into the snail’s shell that the image started to blur and glitch.The poor thing’s eyes started to pop and it wheezed for air until Absalom snatched it away from his captain’s hands. “WITH THAT MAN!!! WHERE?! Where did you find her?!”
“Portrose Town, sir… they seemed to be shopping for… uh… paint and canvas, sir. And… eh… they went out for tea and dessert....”
“Absalom, fetch my scissors!!! I’m killing that man!”
“Sir! You’re in no condition to fight! Much less to engage Hawk Eye Mihawk!”
“Don’t! Don’t say that bastard’s name around me, Absalom!” Moria stood from his bed, feeling his side ache like it always did whenever he overexerted himself. Damn that stupid Flamingo and his strange string powers!! He had never been the same ever since Doflamingo tried to finish him back at Marineford. “I am going to kill him and then I’ll fetch a very strong shadow to tear that lanky body of his down to pieces!!!”
“You’re being irrational, sir.” Absalom said, tugging his captain’s arm to force him to sit back down on his bed. “Perona-chan seems… safe? happy?”
“Of course she’s happy! Ungrateful little brat! She ran away with my treasure and vanished for two years!”
“Aren’t you glad she’s fine?”
Moria fumed, but tilted his head a couple of times and then nodded with a disgusted look on his face.
“Yeah. Poor thing has surely gone through some rough patches since we split. I guess you’re right. If she’s not desperately trying to come back, then I guess she’s old enough to do as she pleases. Where did you find her, again?”
“Portrose town, sir.” Absalom repeated himself, tweaking the poor snail until it breathed back to normal and displayed the picture again. The Mysterious One tapped its shell and another picture appeared. He told Moria to tap it whenever he wished to change pictures.
“Portrose? Isn’t that very close to where our ship was?”
“That's right. It’s right outside the Florian Triangle.The Flotsam Harbor, they called it many years ago, until the locals began to reconstruct the city.”
“So close to home… you think she was trying to go back?”
“We’ve searched the ship multiple times, captain. It’s inhabitable now.”
Moria sighed, trying his best not to get his hopes up. He was bitter Perona had run away from trouble the minute she assumed her crew had lost the battle aganst the Straw Hat Pirates. He knew she’d not managed to get away from Kuma and that he’d sent her away to keep her away from danger, as the former warlord had told him sometime before the fight against the Whitebeard Pirates broke out. He just wished he hadn’t sent him to that man’s castle.
Hawk Eyes had surely kept her safe and sound, Moria could tell as he tapped through the photos. Perona looked happy and healthy, with a bright smile coloring her face. Her cheeks were full and rosy as her hair, now worn down and curled behind her back. He had no way of knowing if his little girl knew he wasn’t dead, but it gave him a sliver of hope that she was strolling around a little town so close to where their former home was. Moria wanted to believe she had at least looked for him, even if she didn’t try too much. Perona never would.
He just wished she wasn’t holding Hawk Eye Mihawk’s hand as she did so.
“What did you see, Absalom? How did you find her?”
“Ah… well… you know the town is very popular for women and young girls so… I went to, uhm…”
“Say no more, I get it.”
“Yeah… so I was hiding, using my powers, when I heard a very familiar laughter from the other side of the street. Then I saw one of her ghosts and decided to follow it until I found her. I planned on reaching out to her and convince her to come back until…”
“...until you saw she had company.”
Absalom flinched and nodded.
“I’m not stupid enough to defy that man.”
“And you did right. He’d not doubt to cut you in halves.”
“So I… uh… I trailed behind them and I… I don’t know, I thought it could make an interesting note for the newspaper.”
“No!” Moria said, baring his pointy teeth at his subordinate. “No, this can’t come out in your reports, you hear me?”
“I know, sir! I know! I just took the photos thinking I could shine some light into Hawk Eyes, the Government loves when they get some leverage on their allies, but I’d not do such a thing to Perona-chan!”
Moria groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. The more he watched the pictures, the more he resented his adoptive daughter, and the more he loathed the man looking lovingly into her doll-like eyes.
On the photo currently on screen, Perona smiled sweetly at her companion, who had his back towards the camera, his expression unreadable from that angle. Over their table, they shared a single chocolate parfait and each had a porcelain cup on their side. Moria tapped the snail and the image flicked and changed. Then, another picture appeared and he saw them walking together across the street, Hawk Eyes carrying multiple shopping bags for her while Perona seemed to stop in front of a large window to look at a very cute-looking dress.
Next picture, they entered the store and Perona could be seen picking the dress from the mannequin whilst Hawk Eyes talked with the shopkeeper. On the next one, he carried another bag for her and it looked like their shopping trip was finished. One more picture and they were entering the inn together. Then Moria decided to stop.
“Did you follow them inside?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that to her. I went inside the inn and overheard their conversation with the innkeeper, but that was it. There… uh… there was only one bed.”
Moria grunted and pulled from his face again, almost feeling as if his eyes would pop out if he kept pulling. He didn’t need the pictures to figure out what happened. He wasn’t entirely sure of what kind of relationship they had at that point, since they didn’t share any sort of physical affection in any of the pictures Absalom took, other than holding hands for a couple of times. But Moria could feel it, he knew his gut was right and he hated it.
“Tell me something, Absalom, am I being a jerk for being this annoyed? Should I be happy for her?”
“I don’t know, sir. This is a lot to take.” Absalom admitted and sat down beside his captain, retrieving the Den Den Mushi from him and giving the old bat a single pat on the shoulder. Moria sighed and picked up the book from his bed, playing with the folded page where he had stopped past time.
“She does look happy.”
“Ah, she was. I’ve known Perona-chan for years but I have to say, I’ve never heard her laugh so wholeheartedly. I have no idea what she’s been through these two years, but Hawk Eyes has not treated her wrong. I’d like to say they’ve just become good friends who go shopping together, but…”
“No, that doesn’t look like it.” Moria sighed again and rolled back into his bed. Absalom picked up the discarded hand-knit blanket and placed it around his captain’s back. He gace him another pat on the arm and proceeded to leave the room.
“I’ll erase the photos, sir.”
“Yeah, you do that.”