Work Text:
Kid leans back in the chair and closes his eyes. Things are never peaceful for very long--he doesn’t like them that way, makes him nervous. He’d rather prod the socket with a copper knife than lose track of where it is or let someone else do it first; he brings the noise and the chaos with him. But he can’t do that all the time. It’s weird to hear the water splash against the outside of the moving ship, like the first night he’d set out to sea and couldn’t sleep (but Killer could, or was doing a damn good job of pretending). Kid could make things noisy here in the workshop, saw a piece of wood in two just for shits and giggles, but he doesn’t want to. He sighs and leans forward; the front legs of the chair slam against the floorboards. Kid’s left arm creaks again and he can feel the loose strip swing, right in the back where he can’t see it no matter the angle--he could hold it exactly into place with his powers, but it’s a waste when he could just solder it.
“Hey, Killer!” he calls.
A few seconds later, the door opens and Killer ducks into the room; his hands are wet and flour is flecked on his mask.
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“Not really,” says Killer. “The pasta dough’s resting; Heat’s using the stove.”
“C’mere.”
Killer ducks in and Kid spits on his thumb, rubbing it on Killer’s mask, over his cheek. The flour’s gotten into a shallow scratch, of which this mask has many--how many has Killer gone through in the past few months? He’d broken three and lost one in Wano, gotten a pretty sizable dent in a third, and this one’s roughed up too.
“You need a new one,” Kid says.
“I know,” says Killer, and Kid can hear in his voice that he’s swallowing a laugh like a particularly large pill after several gulps of water that just aren’t enough.
Kid digs in with his nail, flicking away the remnants of the flour and eyeing his work critically. It’ll do; the scratched mask at least makes it clear that Killer’s seen some shit (not that it wasn’t obvious, not that people don’t know who he is--or Killer will make damn well sure they do).
“C’mere,” Kid says again, his voice coming out rougher, more like sandpaper or the surface of Killer’s mask than the well-finished edge of the table.
Killer pushes up the mask with the heel of his hand; it creaks and sticks on its hinge like an old window, and Killer flashes Kid a look that says yeah, he really knows he needs a new one. Kid grabs his hand, his thumb curling around Killer’s, Killer’s curling back around his in response, twin vines on a fence, and with his other hand Killer tucks his hair out of the way before he leans down to press their foreheads together, mask against goggles, and then their mouths.
“You needed something,” Killer says, a few seconds after pulling back (because he knows Kid wouldn’t ask for this; he’d just take and let Killer haul him off to some other part of the ship if he was really pressed for time).
“Yeah,” Kid says. “There’s a loose bit on the back of my arm.”
To illustrate, he holds it out; Killer leans over his shoulder to see (and Kid gets a really nice view of his ass, and his shirt riding up on his back--he still buys them too small, not that Kid will ever complain about that, except sometimes they’re hard to take off).
“Oh, yeah,” says Killer.
“You got time to solder it?” says Kid.
“Now? Sure,” says Killer. “Let me just find—”
He stands up again, too quick for Kid to grab his ass beforehand. Kid scowls, tugging in the air with his fingers for all the things they need.
“Showoff,” Killer says, but he’s the one who catches in one hand the spool of solder, the iron, and the brush that Kid’s tossed into the air while his other hand is rummaging in a drawer for something else.
Kid can’t really watch Killer while he works, though he tips his head back for a bit and he can see the flashes of mask and hair and hand, cleaning and filing and then finally firing up the iron, but his neck complains and he looks back up. He won’t be able to see it when he’s wearing the arm, but Killer does good seams. He hadn’t always--Kid reaches into his belt for the knife Killer had made him long ago, the two halves of its silver hilt awkwardly stuck together with a wavering line. It’s still dead sharp, though; Kid makes sure it is, and if he wasn’t concerned about losing it he’d use it for throwing more often.
“There,” Killer says, finally. “Keep still.”
Kid rolls his eyes. “I know, I know.”
Killer ruffles his hair on his way to the sink, and Kid realizes that he’d stopped frowning only because he starts again. When Killer comes back the other way, Kid gropes at his ass, making up for earlier, a little bit--especially because Killer not only lets him get away with it, but leans into it.
“Can I move it yet?”
This time, Killer does huff out a laugh, but he nods between breaths. Kid flexes his arm. There’s no extra drag or motion, no extra sound. He pulls Killer in closer, presses his knuckles against Killer’s hip, and the laughter subsides finally.
“We still have the mold for your masks somewhere, right?”
“Yeah,” says Killer. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a spare of that, too.”
Kid nods, cheek rubbing against Killer’s stomach. Killer ruffles his hair again, this time his hand remaining, his palm very pleasantly warm on Kid’s scalp. Kid closes his eyes again. Welding’s pretty damn loud; it might be a nice way to liven things up around here.