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It was a good day. It was a good day. Truly. Nothing could go wrong. The open sea, invincible, unpredictable, calm as the grand line could be, on all sides around you. No sails in sight on a stretch that no-one dared sail. Nobody had started shit, your breakfast wasn’t poisoned, there wasn’t a new air-borne disease spreading along the lower decks. It was a good day.
At least, it was a good day until the newspaper came by. The seagull, who somehow defied all laws of aviation and possibly gravity to even get out here, collapsed in a heap on the deck, claws loosely around the Sunday morning paper.
Blackbeard was a cheapskate, and only ordered one, and so, all the commanders and their lackies would squabble over it as soon as the captain was done reading it. You and Shriyu didn’t bother. The news wasn’t important to either of you, and so you’d sit in his lap and sip on a “fancy” drink (pink lemonade with a paper umbrella you’ve reused far too many times to be sanitary).
But today was a good day. And so when the Captain was done reading what he wanted (a part of you suspected he skimmed everything until he got to the comics), he cleared his voice to stop the scuffle he knew was going to happen and promptly announced, “Shriyu and his toy get to read the paper next, and then you do as you wish.”
You did not want to be involved in the Morning News Scuffle.
So today was not a good day. It was an okay day. A mediocre day, even.
And so, the paper, still rolled up, was diligently passed to you by some assistant ship-wright you never learned the name of. You recognized his upturned nose and big eyes. You’re sure he made a cute child. He didn’t make much else but accidents now-a-days. Katerina was sure he’d make a great addition to her head collection. You’re sure Burgess would have disagreed with her had he been aware of her opinions.
You unroll the paper.
The first word in the headline is your hometown. And as the paper unfurls to its full length in your hand, the rest of the headline falls into view.
BUSTER CALLED BY MARINES: NO SURVIVORS NO REMAINS
And below it was an image of the mushroom cloud forming off the small island you were born and raised on. The one you met Shriyu on. The one you married him on during his one week stay. The one you waited a year on, learning navigation and medicine so you could help the crew. The island that birthed your devil fruit, and the patch of grass forever stained by your awakened. Gone . Like cremated remains in a tornado breeze. Everything you no longer had was destroyed .
You look over at Shriyu, and his face is crestfallen. And he tosses the newspaper at someone, anyone, before scooping you into his arms and leaving the upper deck.
Today sucked.
In fact. Today was shit. Fucking horrible. Terrible even. Probably the worst day of your entire life. After everything you've been through, the storms you’ve weathered, the fears you’ve faced, the worst possibility was something you failed to imagine in your worst nightmares.
That the marines could simply take what you wanted to protect with your whole heart. That almost everything you held sacred was one call away from being blown out of existence. Wiped off the map. The little island you hailed from just got covered in white out by the unforgiving hand of God.
You look up from the pile of blankets you’ve been sniffling under to look at Shriyu, sitting at the end of the bed, anxiously chewing on his cigar. He looks down at you, brown eyes full of concern, a rare expression for him.
His hand has been dutifully rubbing at your back since you began your first sobbing fit.
“Sweetheart?”
He only grunts in response.
“Doesn’t your hand hurt from rubbing my back?”
He lets out a puff of smoke. “No. Doesn’t matter.”
You smile softly at him. His hand reaches to cup your cheek, and you lean into the contact. His hand is warm. It’s calloused. It’s bigger than your whole face. Big enough that it takes little effort for him to reach his thumb to the tip of your nose and whisper “boop”.
You lean your head up and plant a kiss on the offending finger. “Did you just ‘boop’ me, mister?”
“Don’t call me ‘Mister’ if you ain’t planning on starting something, brat.”
You giggle at him. The pain weighs heavy in your heart, but he’s trying to make you feel better. And that makes you feel a little better in and of itself. The effort meaning more than the actual attempt.
—
Two days pass and the whole ship has quickly grown tired of your melancholy attitude. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out that you were very much a ship mascot, like stronger; and that a lot of the crew morale fell to you to handle, since Blackbeard wasn’t much good at anything but fighting, scheming, and eating. But with you “down in the dumps” as burgess put it (“she’s in throws of grieving the loss of her entire family, dipshit,” Katerina defended you, before turning around and immediately telling you to, “stop it” and stomping away), the whole crew was doomed to sink with you.
The crew needed a plan to make you feel better. Some elaborate scheme to get you to smile for at least a little bit. Luckily, elaborate schemes were the Blackbeard pirates strong suit, so it wouldn’t take too much effort to do so, would it?
Blackbeard, Doc Q, Burgess, and Katerina sat down in various places one should not sit down upon in the captain's office and navigational room. Fat asses were placed on maps, dressing tables used as filing cabinets, the floor, and even someone who was not Blackbeard was sat in his chair. He was not happy about that.
Stronger was also in attendance, despite not being able to contribute much. “For morale,” Doc Q said, “since Shriyu’s little plaything isn’t doing the one thing their good at.”
Katerina huffs, “they’re not a plaything, they got married a year and a half ago.”
Stronger, oblivious to the conversation involving his favorite person, continues to chew away at Doc Q’s oily hair. It doesn’t taste like the apples you normally bring him, but it did it’s job in keeping his mouth full.
Blackbeard claps his hands twice. The whole room (except stronger) turns their attention towards him. He’s seated on an old bureau, moments away from collapsing under the weight of him and its contents. “Attention.”
“Yes sir!” The room shouts at once.
“The objective of today’s meeting is to get our mascot back on track.” He coughs into his fist before chuckling. “Any idea is a good idea if we build off it. Does anyone have any starting points.”
The room is silent for exactly five beats before Burgess chimes in. “Bang Bang Shoot Shoot competition?”
“I rescind my previous statement that sounds like a terrible idea.” Blackbeard says.
Katerina comes to his defense. “I think thats a great idea actually, it’d reverse the damage caused by this too, and raise crew morale.”
Doc Q roles his eyes. “Cause they’d be the first one out. And I think we all agree that’d just make the problem worse.”
Blackbeard laughs, for the first time in days, actually. “I didn’t even think of that! I thought someone would fall overboard and they’d have to jump over to save them!”
Katerina and Burgess laugh too. “Oh that’d be terrible!”
“They’d be like a sopping wet kitten! So sad with those big eyes.”
Doc Q turns to Burgess. “Kitten?”
“Yeah. I think they got called a ‘poor little meow meow’ by the news recently, whatever that means.” He clarifies.
“You gave me the worst idea.” He yanks his hair out of Stronger’s mouth, and wipes the horse drool off of it with his giant coat.
“Worse than the shoot shoot bang bang?” Katerina interjects.
“Second worse idea,” Doc Q corrects.
“Well,” Blackbeard says, tapping his foot against the wooden floor, driving some poor oarsman absolutely insane , “spit it out.”
“Let’s give Shriyu cat ears.” Doc Q says quietly, pushing his two index fingers together. “Obviously, he won’t be down with the idea. But it’d make them laugh. It’d make the whole crew laugh.”
The room is quiet for a moment. “But how?” Burgess eventually asks.
Katerina nods. “I ain’t giving up one of my cat ear headbands. ‘Specially not the pearl ones I got while we ducked into white beards old territory.”
“Not those kind of cat ears!” Doc Q exclaims.
The room goes silent. And as he looked around, he saw each face light up in mischievous glee as they realized the full extent of his plan. Blackbeard was first, his eyes and grin wide, hand slapping to his mouth to hide the boisterous laughter that was soon to flow out.
Katerina next, her eyes twinkled and painted lips split like the red sea. Her teeth were tightly clenched as she looked over to Burgess, waiting for him to understand before she burst into laughter of tiny pieces of confetti. Entirely dependent on how long he took.
Burgess eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, and they glazed over as he imagined it in his head. The fuzzy little silver ears on top of Shriyu’s head. And he started howling . It was inevitable that the rest followed suit.
“You’re going to use your devil fruit!” Blackbeard exclaimed while slapping his knee.
“-To make a cat-boy disease!” Burgess finished. The idea was so absurd that Doc Q burst into hysterics.
Katerina was taking deep breaths to not completely lose it so she could speak. “You were wrong, that is worse than the shoot shoot bang bang idea burgess had!”
The bureau collapses under Blackbeard’s weight, and the room goes quiet before being filled with maniacal laughter.
“Do it!” Burgess exclaimed. “Even if we do something different you have to do it!”
“God, Shriyu is going to be so mad!” Doc Q nearly cries imagining the angry face he was bound to make.
“It’ll be worth it though,” Katerina says through her fit of girlish giggles. It was the kind of girlish giggle that girls giggle after dissecting their first cockroach, but a girlish giggle nonetheless. “Soooooooo worth it.”
“I think that’ll be the plan.” Blackbeard says after he finally calms himself down.
“Meeting adjourned! Now get the fuck out of my office!”
—
Two more days pass before Doc Q sets their plan into motion. His plan really. Since it relies on him entirely as well. Casually, sitting on stronger, he somehow manages to steer the horse towards him, and trots right in front of him before stopping.
He coughs pathetically into his fist. He has no one convinced. Shriyu just stares at him.
“What new disease is it this time?”
“Nothing.” He says in a way that has absolutely no one convinced. “Nothing but a common cold I’ve caught.”
“I don’t believe you.” Shriyu states. Nobody believes him. The crew members stare in awe before quickly backing away to the edge of the deck. This is bound to be a fight. Surely.
“Well, not believing me will only cause stress.” Doc Q takes the hand he coughed into and pats his shoulder. “I hope you don’t catch it, my throat is quite scratchy.”
His throat is not scratchy at all. In fact, Shriyu goes to point this out to him before you toddle out from below deck, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. Your eyes are red from crying, and nose pink and raw from the tissues.
“Doc Q!” You shout. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
Doc Q flushes. “Oh, really?”
“No, actually, I wanted to see my favorite boy, Stronger.”
Doc Q visibly deflates upon hearing the words leave your mouth, and falls off Stronger, allowing the horse to trot over to you and nuzzle into you for the apple you’ve hidden somewhere in your cocoon of blankets. When he does not find it, he resorts to the second best option, and starts to chew your hair while you gently pet the half-dead-horse’s neck. Dear God he’s weathered every storm and then some, but stands strong enough to have Doc Q on his back. You wish you were as Strong as Stronger.
At least you’re prettier.
It’s not long before Shriyu gets sick of Doc Q’s moping and walks over, scoops you up and begins carrying you to the lower decks. “I’m done,” he tells you firmly, “it’s nap-time.”
You don’t bother to question him. The gruffness of his voice telling you he’s clearly had more shenanigans to deal with than just your’s and Doc Q’s. So you let him, and make sure to snuggle up to him extra because that makes him smile around his cigar and that just makes your shoulders slump a little less and the candles in the narrow hall shine just a bit brighter.
He tosses you to the bed and you squeal as you fly through the air and land on it, bouncing once before sinking into the downy feathers. “Shriyu!” You call his name.
He looks up from where he’s unbuttoning his shirt and jacket but doesn’t verbally acknowledge you.
“Come join me!” You say.
“In a moment, dear, let me get undressed.”
You huff grumpily, but wait, sitting up and watching, for him to get down to his boxers before climbing in. His hat is the last to go, and he makes sure to place it on your head before he climbs into the bed.
It’s much too big for you, and covers everything from your cranium to the bottom of your nose. You can see nothing. You flick it off to the side before you climb in with him, and place your head above his slowly beating heart.
Who can blame you for drifting off to sleep so fast?
You wake up to the feeling of something tickling your leg. It feels soft, fuzzy, and it sways back and forth across the back of your thigh. You manage to twist your body just enough to see the offending item through the thin sheet you’re both tucked under.
A tail. A tail that trails back to Shriyu’s behind. He has a tail . Your husband has a tail. You freeze in shock with the information. And then slowly ease yourself out of his tight grip on you to look to the top of his head.
Cat ears . He has two silver cat ears sprouting from the top of his. Your hand reaches out to touch one, and it flicks away when your index finger touches the tip.
“Oh boy,” you whisper to yourself. The ears flick again at the feeling of breath among them. Oh boy does not begin to even unpack your husband becoming a cat-boy.
Either way, you’re sure he’s going to have a hissy fit when he wakes up. So, you cuddle up to him, and gently pet his ears and head, letting the rumbling of his purrs guide you back into your nap.
This, you decide, is a problem you can deal with after you wake up. In the meantime, however, you are going to choose to cherish this, as you should all things you love.