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In general, Killer makes understandable choices. Kid supposes there’s always going to be an exception, and, like, love is blind and all that crap, but that Killer would want to get with Trafalgar of all people—well, it could be worse. It’s not Straw Hat, for one, but that might be better because he’s not fucking sneaky the way Trafalgar is. Still. Kid trusts Killer, and Kid trusts Killer’s judgement. It’s gotten Kid out of a lot of his own bad choices, but he’s the one who makes them. The worst part might be that Trafalgar’s not a bad guy, just kind of annoying and thunder-stealing, and Kid will give him some respect, but he doesn’t want to put up with him unless he has to. So he can’t even say this is a bad choice for a real reason that has anything to do with anything, and it’s not Kid’s business who Killer associates himself with for reasons beyond that. It’s just—it’s Trafalgar.
So Kid does his best not to mention it (only, like, to make sure Trafalgar and his people know that this doesn’t mean they’re friends forever or any of that bullshit). He keeps out of the way when he can when Killer brings Trafalgar around. He bites his tongue when Killer mentions they’re planning to meet up. (He’s used to the taste of blood, but fucking ow.) And it works until it doesn’t.
His favorite escape for when Trafalgar shows up is the weapons storage. The crew is always adding to the pile and then rummaging through for new parts and replacements, never putting anything back where it belongs. Organization and inventory is a battle, but it’s something to do, and Kid wants to be the one to do it. As Trafalgar’s ship moves alongside the Victoria Punk , Kid makes his way down and pushes through the spare cannonballs at the front. Wire and Heat had hauled up some treasure chests from a wreck the other day; there had been a few well-sealed bank notes and some jewelry, but it had mostly been rusted daggers and flintlock pistols. Most of the daggers are worth more as scrap metal, but a couple are salvageable and the guns can be used for parts. Kid opens the chests and begins to divide them roughly as usable and not between the two.
A knock sounds on the open doorway; Kid whirls around. It’s Trafalgar, but Killer isn’t with him.
“Wasn’t Killer up on deck?” says Kid.
“Yes,” says Trafalgar. “He said you might be able to help me with something.”
Trafalgar—prompted by Killer, but still—is asking for Kid’s help. Kid squints at him.
“I need to replace the trim on my sword.”
Kid turns away from the chests and steps toward the door, into the aisle formed by the boxes of cannonballs. Trafalgar holds out his sword; yeah the trim on the guard looks matted and kind of gross. (It’s always seemed gaudy in a weird, unmaintainable way, though Kid can’t really talk what with the way pieces of his arm are always corroding—that’s different, though; that’s more functional than anything else.)
He shouldn’t give a part to Trafalgar. Shit like that is cheap as weapons accessories go, and Trafalgar wouldn’t let himself get ripped off. It’s his stuff, but it’s only trim, and Trafalgar’s going to owe him something tiny now, and what it really comes down to is that Killer will be mad if he says no.
“Come on,” says Kid.
He jerks his head toward the back in what is supposed to be the sword section. They have a bunch of fur-trimmed broadswords and a cracked sheath or two that can be stripped for parts somewhere in the mix, and it should be well-organized. They pass crates of bullets, the crossbows that Jaguar says to keep around but is probably never going to learn to use, and there, on the left, are the swords. Kid picks one up with a strange crossguard that almost looks like a bottle-opener (he’s heard of multipurpose weapons, but that’s fucking weird) and turns it over; the back of the hilt has a patch of trim that looks kind of like Trafalgar’s.
“How’s this?”
Trafalgar shakes his head. “It needs to be wider.”
Kid sighs. There are more, but digging through the piles is going to be annoying. He lifts his arm; there’s a chest up on a shelf with an iron lock that he can call straight to him and is full of spare parts. It’s harder with all the iron and iron alloy in the room to control it, but that doesn’t mean Kid can’t do it. (People might assume he can’t or won’t, but he wouldn’t be able to do the big things, repel a dagger with his arm and send it right through an opponent’s torso, rip out the support beams of a ship so it comes crashing down, if he couldn’t do shit like this.) He yanks; the chest pulls away from its shelf and knocks a stack of holsters down as it goes. Kid drops the chest on the floor in front of Trafalgar and twists his fingers to release the locking mechanism.
“That seems useful,” says Trafalgar.
“Yeah, well it only works with some locks,” says Kid. “Anyway, here’s most of the spares.”
Scabbards, hilts, crossguards, pieces of blades, tassels, decorative jewels and pieces of glass all stare up at the two of them. Trafalgar begins to sift through, and Kid grabs a cracked old steel sheath. He peers inside; that’s definitely white fur (or a close approximation.
“What about this?”
Trafalgar looks at it, the fur at the top, through the crack. He measures his own sword’s guard between thumb and forefinger, placing it against the sheath as if to measure. Then he shoves his hand into it, presumably to get a feel for the texture.
“Well?” says Kid.
“It’ll do,” says Trafalgar.
Trafalgar and his crew stay for dinner. They’ve brought booze and dessert, so they’re not totally freeloading, but that’s not going to match the quality of Killer’s cooking. No such thing as a truly fair trade, though, and maybe Kid will be on the other side of fairness at some point. Or something.
It’s Kid’s turn to help out in the galley, wash dishes and get the right cutting boards when Killer needs them. (Technically, it’s Hip’s turn, but Kid’s the best at it and Killer’s making twice the usual amount of dinner, so they’ve swapped.) Trafalgar’s in the kitchen, too, not to help out, but he’s not bothering either of them. When Kid turns to glare at him out of habit after he’s finished wiping down the counter, though, he pauses. Trafalgar is leaning on his sword, looking at Killer. His expression isn’t in his normal range between annoyed and smug, but almost unguarded. Kid shouldn’t be looking; this isn’t for him to see; he turns around so fast the sole of his boot squeaks against the floor, harsh as rusted gears in a clock tower. The sponge is dripping dirty water down his arm; Kid swears under his breath and stalks toward the sink.
That kind of thing really does make people soft, huh? It’s good that he’s so into Killer (he’d fucking better be), but Kid’s here too. The faucet is blasting, but above it Kid can hear Killer’s voice.
“Law, can you get me the bottle of white wine in the fridge? It’s on the bottom shelf…”
That same kind of feeling is in Killer’s voice, heavy, odd, a taste Kid hasn’t acquired. He scrubs at his wrist; it’s clean; water is getting in his gears. Something else, too, is tugging at his mind, but he ignores it. When he turns back around, looking for something to do, Trafalgar is holding the wine bottle tilted towards Killer, as if offering, measuring a pour. Their faces are tilted toward each other, connected by a line on a schematic, and Trafalgar’s face is rearranged into something new yet still unlike his usual expressions.
Whatever.
Dinner is delicious, and the dessert’s not half-bad, assorted cakes of various shapes and flavors. Both crews are engaged in terrible drinking songs together, and the urge to remind everyone that they aren’t friends has fallen away. He’s lost this round, and between their two crews, if Trafalgar were to try and sell them out to some hotshot, Kid knows his crew would win. There are more of them; they’re better fighters; they can hold their liquor better.
Killer and Trafalgar are standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the guardrail, and Trafalgar’s mouth is moving but the wind is wrong for Kid to hear his words. Killer, though, looks relaxed—his voice, then, carries over, a mush of syllables as if Kid’s hearing them while drunk and delirious, but the tone is clear as high fidelity. It’s like back in the galley, that sort of note, the same thing pulling like Kid’s coat caught on a doorknob. Killer’s happy.
(Trafalgar seems happy, too. As he should be.)
After they leave in the morning, the ship settles back into its routine. Kid fishes off the deck, polishing a dagger while he waits for something to bite. Heat is noodling on the guitar somewhere behind him; the sound fades in and out on the snapping wind. The current tugs at the line. Kid looks closer, but there’s nothing biting, so he returns to the dagger.
Killer’s boots tread deliberately on the wood, and he casts his line next to Kid’s but far enough out so they won’t get tangled. Kid nods his head at Killer. They stand in relative silence, the sound of scrubbing the only disturbance.
“I’m sorry for dropping him on you yesterday,” Killer says.
“No you’re not,” says Kid.
Killer dips his shoulders in concession. Kid opens his mouth, closes it, and looks down at the blade. What’s he going to say? He hadn’t wanted to spend any time with Trafalgar, even for that. He’s not going to wrap it up in some fake-ass reasoning like that Trafalgar should have been spending the time with Killer or something, either.
“It was fine, though,” says Kid.
“Oh?” says Killer.
He can’t hide the interest, the slight inflection in his tone. So it was an actual attempt to get them to spend some time together. (Kid wonders if Trafalgar had figured it out—Killer wouldn’t tell him directly, right?)
“Look,” says Kid, then stops—what’s he going to say?
Killer turns his head, the full front of his mask facing towards Kid, a little more literal than Kid had meant for him to be.
“I don’t—we’re not friends. But he’s not a bad guy. He’s really into you, you know.”
“I know,” says Killer, and it sounds like he’s trying to force back a laugh more than usual.
(Trafalgar’s got to be doing something right if he’s getting that much through to Killer, though it’s impossible not to see him telegraphing it.)
Something tugs at Kid’s fishing line. He slaps the dagger onto his arm, sticking it with his magnetism, and grabs the reel to stop the unspooling and drag it backwards. It feels fucking huge, maybe a sea king, maybe big enough for a feast tonight. The line strains. Kid grits his teeth and pulls, and then the line pulls back and he feels the snap like a guitar string tuned too high. Fuck.
“Well, I hope he knows your bounty should be higher than his,” Kid grumbles as he reels in the broken fishing line, several meters ripped clean off by the looks of things—he should have used the expensive reinforced stuff.
His thoughts on fishing line are cut off by a laugh Killer can’t hold back, right into the wind, not incidental. It’s not funny; Killer’s damn well worth more than any pirate out on the seas. (Excepting Kid himself, but that’s a given.) But if it makes Killer happy, Kid’s not going to argue.