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Breath staggered and head spinning, the night sky dances in circles and laughs at his limp body slouched against a log— and Killer vows to go sober.
He wouldn’t consider himself an alcoholic, not on the level that Kid is (in the sense that drinking is a fun activity in itself to Kid); but, when he sips at his drink to keep everyone appeased, he lets himself indulge in the only way he knows how to— following along.
A joint is passed around; he makes note of Kid appearing out of nowhere to join the circle, and suddenly it’s in his unsteady hands that are starting to feel like someone else’s limbs nailed onto his.
The blanket of dark reaches down from the sky to cover his eyes in a show of pity; the ache won’t go away. Stenches waft all around him— the dank smell of wet sand is starting to be unbearable. His ears are not his. He is a freak of a human; a zombie of barely peddled together body parts and his hair is starting to get in his mouth and he chews it, tasting the salt of seas and musky sunshine from all the time he spends outdoors, tanning away, and blood from every man and marine he’s slashed in half; and—
“Hurryyyyyyyyy, Killer!”
Hop is starting to get antsy. (How long was he zoning out for?)
One quick inhale and he hands the joint to Hop, who stops braiding Killer’s hair immediately with a little cheer.
Smoke is blown into his half-braided hair and his face with a mischievous giggle.
“This sucks,” he declares to the sky. To no one in particular. Kid narrows his eyes, a minute movement that would’ve gone unnoticed to anyone who wasn’t obsessed with him in the way Killer was.
House scrutinizes a cloth bag stained with blood. “Yeah, I’m not feeling anything. Hey, I think these buds are moldy.”
“Fuck!” Quincy spits. “I swear, before I killed that pig, he said this was some bougie-ass weed from a West Blue dealer!”
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Smoking moldy weed and drinking ransacked booze is a recipe for disaster; which he probably should have realized when his lungs started to burn and puff yellow smoke. But, he can't bring himself to kill the mood. It wasn’t even a question of whether or not their “conquest” was worth celebrating; smashing assholes’ faces in got the entire crew hyper, and who was Kid to stop them? It'd be laughable to even try to deny that Kid enjoyed getting shit-faced at any opportunity possible. Everyone smiles wide and loopy, high enough for the world to look a little warmer and everything just a tad bit funnier; and the party rages on, celebrators punch-drunk happy to be a pirate.
And the two meanest pirates, hand in hand, stumble away from the raucous party.
With some pathetic excuse of we-need-to-pee (“D’you need Killer to hold your dick for you?” Hip commented, burying her giggles in Quincy’s chest), they made their way to open field. Even from far away, they could hear the harmony of guitars thrown off-kilter by the lack of drums, ditched by Killer once duty called.
The Kid Pirates played angrily, emotionally, powerfully; air sparkling and mosh pits forming and fights breaking out and beer and puke being sloshed every which way— just as it should be. Killer could still faintly make out the vocals of Hip and Hop, screaming their lungs out alongside a choir of whatever chords they had strung together on the spot. They were rebellious and volatile and infamous; they were the Kid Pirates.
“I saved some actual good stuff for us,” Kid whispers conspiratorially, looking as mischievous as seven-year-old Kid had been when they met, smile wide and pupils shrunken, the island’s humidity unwavering even at night causing constant beads of sweat to form on every exposed inch of Kid’s body. He wants to laugh at how red and blown his eyes are. He wants to run his hands over skin and watch them widen.
Kid seems so young under moonlight, where sun can't reach and frown lines retract; even younger than he is now— and maybe it was just the high speaking— but, both drunk on freedom and possibility, mugs of beer long discarded, nostalgia begins to claw at Killer's heart.
“You should stop smoking.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Will you remember me in fifty years? Will I haunt you like you haunt me? Killer so desperately wants to blurt out. Will I be there with you, turning old and boring— like how we said we wouldn’t?
“When you wake up tomorrow feeling all fucked up, you’ll regret ignoring me. You always do. Stomping around, talking about I have a headache, get the fuck out of the bathroom, blah blah blah.”
Kid cracks up, forever taking pleasure in Killer’s motherly anxiety. “You care too much, Killer. If my problem’s smoking, yours is caring.” Killer’s irritation only spikes, but, unphased, Kid leans his entire body weight on his arm— and just as fast as it came, it left as he melts under the touch.
“Caring about pirates is gonna get you killed.”
The night, ever humid, offers no answer. No sleep to hide behind, Killer ponders; he agonizes on about how they share entirely too much history, too many secrets and untold confessions that weigh heavy between the two whenever one breaches the boundary set by a decade and a half of friendship. He plays with the whispered words Kid said, yearns after it as he crushes it between his fingers and dismisses it as Kid-being-high-out-of-his-mind.
“You better pray I die by your side, Kid,” he chides, knowing that come tomorrow, when everyone’s complaining about their hangovers and sand-crusted clothes, they’ll treat each other as they’ve always treated each other— stand unwaveringly side-by-side to their own faults— and nothing more.