Chapter Text
“Roger!!”
“Sorry to worry you all like that.” The pirate walks out of the infirmary, a confident look plastered on his face.
“Ah, good, you’re better now! Anyways, check this out!” Mugren speaks up which causes Roger to splutter.
“Were you really worried for me or not?!”
“We got Shakky out, safe and sound!” Erio and Spencer say and Roger looks over at his first mate, who Shakky is hugging and staying close with.
“And we made off with all this treasure!” Doringo points out and Roger practically beams at the haul. They’ll be loaded for months, maybe even a year or two! Maybe only one… or less- which is still a lot! Especially with a massive chest in the middle, probably worth at least two billion berry.
With all the laughter and cheering going on, it’s pretty hard to notice a muffled baby's wail. Until it happens again and Gaban shushes them. Roger strains his ears, glancing at his crewmates. They all listen in until Doringo points at the big chest in the middle.
“Hey, that came from inside the chest!”
“There’s someone in there!” Another crewmate cries out, then adds, “Careful when you open it!” when Roger approaches the chest.
The man himself gulps as he slowly starts to unlatch the trunk. Rayleigh stands next to him, arms crossed in case something happens. After unlocking it, Roger quickly throws the lid open and they all peer inside, jaws dropping.
Inside, there’s a guy curled up, face down on his knees and unconsciously holding a little red haired baby. The baby is holding onto the guy’s black hair and trying to climb up his head, resting its chin on top of it. The guy, who’s most likely passed out (or maybe dead), is wearing a dark green cloak that envelops most of him, with dark fresh stains on his (hers? The person’s hair is short, but they can’t tell due to their face being hidden) right shoulder.
The pirates blink a few times and grimace slightly, before Roger leans down and gently pries the baby's fingers off the person’s hair. He’s a little successful, with the baby only ripping out a quarter of a chunk of black hair. The captain glances around his crew, holding up the baby with both hands.
“Can we get this guy out of the chest? Seems a bit uncomfortable. And he looks hurt …uhhhh, Gaban?” Roger offers a tiny smile towards the navigator. Since they don’t have an official doctor on this ship, they chose the guy who’s most capable of temporarily taking the job and doing it best. Rayleigh came in close second. Millet Pine surprisingly comes in third. Roger’s left hand man frowns before glancing at Rayleigh who reluctantly sighs.
Gaban moves to lift the guy up under his armpits, which causes the stranger to hiss and thrash around a bit, finally waking up. He stumbles out of the chest and glances around at the pirates, as if looking for something. Most of their guards are up, and they have hands on their weapons but he stands still, his eyes darting around. They seem to find their target when his glare zeroes in on Roger, or more at what Roger is holding.
“Shanks?” He stumbles towards them, arms reaching out to the baby before slumping forward, Roger barely catching him with one hand and holding the tiny baby in the other. He looks at Gaban in panic, eyes darting back at the teenager, then to the navigator.
The boy was clearly reaching for the baby and he’s very clearly a marine. Doesn’t take a genius to know how marine uniforms look like. The dark green cloak is a nice touch though. But he still looks like a kid, even if he is a marine. Not like he’ll be too hard to take down when he possibly wakes up and causes trouble, the kid’s most likely a rookie. Plus, he’s pretty injured.
“Do we… throw him overboard or something?” Erio suggests, getting a boo and thumbs down from his captain.
“A marine who can stand in front of a bunch of armed infamous pirates without pissing himself is pretty impressive. Maybe he could join the crew!” Roger cackles, getting a few annoyed and slightly worried looks.
“Gotta make sure he survives first, pretty sure he’s still bleeding.” Rayleigh points out and Roger hands the kid over to his first mate. He glances back at the baby in his other hand, holding it close to his face.
“You must be Shanks.” He chuckles when the baby giggles, eyes wide. “Does anyone have another onesie? This one’s full of splinters!” Roger glances at his crew, who start to disperse, either to help Gaban and Rayleigh, to find any clothes for the baby, or to go make food. They’ll go through the treasure later, they kind of lost their appetite for it.
“The kid did good getting you both out of that hellhole.” Roger smiles at the infant, before yelping when his hair gets yanked.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
Three days have passed since the kid’s fever started to finally break. He’d already woken up a few times already, calling out for his dad during all of them, and once even mistaking Roger for the guy, asking when’d he get a stubble and what happened to his facial scar. Roger felt awkward when that happened and patted the teen’s clammy head a few times, which seemed to work pretty well in calming him down.
The kid also talked in his sleep, his favourite words and phrases being ‘dad’, ‘shanks’, ‘I have to save them’ and ‘I’m sorry’. Scared the shit out of Roger on the first night, since they were bed neighbours in the infirmary. What scared him worse was when the kid woke up screaming in the second night, which consisted mostly of night terrors and the apologies for not saving other people and not being able to get Shamrock ‘out’. Whoever that was.
Shanks, on the other hand, was a really happy, giggly baby, who also had night terrors, but those mostly consisted of him shitting himself and wailing for food. Roger didn’t mind that much, and he basically shared custody with Rayleigh, Gaban and surprisingly Gloriosa. Shakky also helped out a little bit, mostly by criticizing how Gaban and Roger cleaned the little tyke.
The baby also slept in the infirmary since it was a good room temperature and has the ill teenager, who’s been calling out to him in his delirious, sick state.
Even if he is a marine, Roger still feels bad for the poor guy. Stuck himself and a baby in a treasure chest to get off that god awful island, possibly to end up with a gang of pirates. That took a lot of balls. And risk. And stupidity. Roger would probably do something even dumber, if he was a small rookie marine who isn’t that strong and is carrying a baby. But he isn’t, so he can’t really compare.
There’s also something about the marine that strikes him with a feeling of familiarity, but he’s really stumped with that. Maybe he once saw him while battling Garp? Since he’s a marine, he could’ve been on the vice admirals ship. Or not, since there’s a million of those.
Speaking of the Vice Admiral, he heard that the guy blew a gasket in Marineford from Erio. Something about punching a platoon captain through the wall.
It didn’t make it on the news since they can’t call out their newly named ‘Marine Hero’ a traitor or something, but Erio got his ways.
Anyways, back to the kid. His fever already started to to go down a tiny bit and he’s started to mutter some stuff. Roger chooses to ignore it, thinking that he’s just sleep talking before the boy shoots up from the bed and nearly falls off of it. Roger, of course, manages to catch him before his face slams into the floor. Would’ve been unfortunate. The kid squirms a bit, trying to push himself up while also trying to distance himself away from Roger. When he finally sits up, he warily looks at Roger, glancing around the room as if looking for something.
“Where’s Sha- the baby?” His voice cracks. The boy’s face pales, which is a bit concerning since he’s already really pale and he looks around, a bit more panicked.
“The baby’s fine. He’s sleeping right now.” Roger points at a makeshift crib behind his bed, to which the teenager perks up.
Almost instantly, the guy is lunging across Roger’s bed, nearly falling off of it and smashing his teeth into the floor, which is only stopped by Roger catching his collar. It barely deters him, since he squirms from the pirate’s grip and stumbles in front of the crib, catching himself onto the ledge. He peers down, his shoulders slumping down and a look of absolute relief taking over the terror that was on his face mere seconds ago.
The marine reaches down to run his fingers through the baby’s hair, to which the little thing reaches to grab his finger. The worry and tension leave the teen’s face as his expression softens and he peers down at the baby. Aw, cute.
Then, Roger panics a bit when the teenager slumps forward again.
He glances around the infirmary and sighs, knowing how pissed Rayleigh will be if he finds the kid slumped over the crib and on the floor.
The pirate captain sighs again, picking up the passed out feverish marine and dragging him into his own bed, since even unconscious, the kid has a white knuckled grip on the crib. And he can’t move the crib because it’s nailed to the table, courtesy of Gaban. Oh well, he can switch beds with the teenager.
The captain tosses a blanket over the cadet and goes to sit on the other bed, bouncing on the mattress a little. He prefers hammocks to the infirmary beds.
After settling in, Roger looks at the ceiling felling a little restless. He glances at the kid, then back at the ceiling, blinking a few times.
“I can’t go back.” He hears the teen mutter after a few minutes and it doesn’t take a genius to know that he’s holding back tears.
“Guess not. We can drop you both off at an island if you prefer. Or you can join our crew! Garp would blow a gasket if we manage to recruit a former marine.” Roger smirks at the thought and he hears a strangled sound come from the teen.
“Not that we’d only recruit you to piss off a few marines, we can totally bring you back if you want.” He says quickly, the kid letting out a huff that sounds a little like a wheeze.
“I doubt they’d let me back unless it’s to execute me. I shot a Celestial Dragon.” The kid mumbles the last part and Roger shoots up from his lying position, looking at the teen before letting out a small huff of laughter.
“Maybe we can drop you off on a safer island. Got any family?” The pirate waits a few seconds, hearing a choked sob. “If you have nowhere to stay, you can always join us. I’m the captain, so my crew will eventually warm up to you if I ask them to. Plus, pretty sure they already got attached to baby Shanks.” He tries to liven the mood, lying back down to stare at the ceiling.
“You did good getting yourself and Shanks out. Even if it’s just one person, it’s still a life saved.” Roger grumbles, slowly dozing off.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
For the next few hours, the teenager occupies himself with playing or taking care of the baby. Probably can’t fall asleep. Roger, on the other hand, started snoring after reassuring the kid, then woke up three hours later to Shanks’ shrill wailing and crying.
Roger glances at the teenager, who is rocking the sniffling little thing back and forth, trying to get it to fall asleep. Roger snickers, getting a glare from the teen.
“It’s not good that you kept him here in an infirmary with an ill person. What if he got sick?” The boy hisses, giving the captain a scowl and patting the infant’s back.
The kid keeps ranting about it and Roger sighs. “I mean, what were you even thinking, keeping him in an infirmary with a really ill… me! He could’ve gotten sick, or- or died, I think, because like- like, they get sick a lot. Babies get sick. A lot. I think.” The kid says, mumbling the last part and Roger gives him an amused look. Roger glances over the teen’s shoulder and looks at Shanks, who’s softly snoring against the kid’s chest. The pirate captain coo’s and the cadet flushes red.
“Do you guys even know how to take care of a baby?” He gives Roger a glare without any heat behind it, and the pirate snorts.
“Do you?” He questions and the cadet splutters.
“More than you apparently!” He hisses, face becoming even redder.
“Probably… yeah you’re right.” Roger looks back up at the ceiling and the kid places Shanks back in the crib, running his hand through the little tykes' hair again.
Roger coos and the teen gives him a glare, face heating up even more. Instead of verbally insulting him, like teens usually do (or what Roger thinks they do), he grumbles under his breath and goes back to looking at the baby.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
Rayleigh yells at Roger for not getting him when the kid woke up. The boy in turn is standing against the corner while holding an undisturbed Shanks, who babbles and pulls at his hair.
“Rayleigh, you’re scaring him.” Gaban gives the first mate a look, getting one back before Rayleigh sighs.
“You still should’ve told us, what if he stabbed you when you fell asleep or something?” The man pinches the bridge of his nose and the cadet (or ex-cadet?) lets out an accused squawk. Roger does the same, then puts a hand over his heart.
“But he didn’t. I can’t believe you would accuse such a polite boy of doing something so heinous.” The captain says with sadness and Rayleigh sputters.
“You don’t even know him! He’ll probably set the ship on fire when we aren’t looking. He's a marine for goodness sake, we can’t just kidnap them.”
“Yeah we can! Pirates can do whatever they want. Plus, he saved a little baby, I don’t think he’d set the ship on fire. Also, look at him! Does he look like he’d set a ship on fire on purpose?” Roger points at the boy, who’s running his hands through Shanks’ hair with a nervous look on his face.
“Maybe on accident-“ Gaban snorts at his captain’s words, “but he’s totally harmless.” Rayleigh thinks it over before groaning and sitting on one of the infirmary beds.
“Fine. But don’t go asking for help when karma comes knocking on your doorstep and says that he’s a spy sent to fuck with all of us and get us captured.” The first mate glares at the kid, who stares back with a slightly dumbstruck expression.
“Or when we get cannonballs thrown at us by crazy vice admirals.” Rayleigh adds into his spiel, frowning at Gaban, who raises an eyebrow.
“Where’d that come from?” The other man mutters and Roger clasps his hands with a loud clap, making the windows shudder and the kid jump up in surprise.
“So we’re keeping him?” He looks at two of his crewmates with a shine in his eyes, causing Rayleigh to groan again.
“Yes. But only until we can drop him off at an island.” Roger’s smile drops at the words and he groans instead, flopping back onto his bed and rolling side to side.
“How mature.” Rayleigh crosses his arms and Gavan gives him an amused look.
“You’re so bossyyyyy. And I’m supposed to be the captain.” Roger complains some more and Rayleigh grimaces.
“He’s kind of right, you’ve gotta loosen up a bit. Shakky might even appreciate it.” Gaban snorts, while Rayleigh glares at him. Roger cackles and gets a bonk on the head by his first mate.
“Next island we’ll be able to stop at is Mori Island in about four days. Doesn’t really have an official name since it’s uninhabited. After that, we can either head to Ohara, which is three weeks of sailing, or Ilisia Kingdom, which is a week and a half, but they’re affiliated with the World Government.” Their navigator informs them, which causes Rayleigh to grimace at the news, contrasting Roger’s growing grin.
“To Ilisia Kingdom it is!” Roger laughs and a “huh?!” comes from the kid, who has slowly made his way over to put Shanks back in his crib.
“Our best choice is to stay about one or two days in Mori Island to restock and get organized, then make a beeline to Ilisia Kingdom. The marines are still most likely organizing themselves from the disaster that was God Valley, it’ll take them at least a month to get everything back in order.” Gaban explains, trying to underestimate how they can go into a Kingdom allied with marines and just hang around there.
“We might even see Garp there!” Roger smiles.
“Just because they’re allied with the marines, doesn’t mean that Garp will come running at any time. Need I remind you that he was also extremely injured from fighting Rocks?” Rayleigh reminds him, and the cadet inhales sharply, causing the first mate to glance at him, then look back at his captain as he stands up and leans against the wall.
“D- Garp got injured?” The kid suddenly asks in a whisper, face a bit more pale than it was before.
“Yep. We both got pretty injured during the fight, going up against a possessed mega-evil Rocks.” Roger shrugs and the kid’s ashen face pales even more.
“Is he…” The cadet closes his mouth, looking at them with a look of apprehension.
“Hell no. The bastard definitely made it out. Had to carry his stubborn ass too, and then get him to a navy ship. Then I had to get out of said navy ship before that Bogard kid skewered me.” Rayleigh crosses his arms and the tension in the boy’s shoulders loosen up, before he lets out a relieved huff.
“Nah, he rushed back just to see Shakky before Doringo tried to steal her away.” Gaban jokes and Rayleigh scowls at him while Roger howls with laughter.
“Whatever. Point is, the idiot’s safe and probably getting pampered in the marine base.” The first mate nods and Roger hums in thought.
The boy looks at them and straightens up, before quickly doing a ninety degree bow.
“Thank you for helping him.” He straightens back up with a slightly red face and goes back to paying attention to Shanks, as the three pirates look at each other in confusion.
“…what’re we eating for lunch? I missed breakfast, so I’m starving.” Roger huffs, trying to change the subject.
“Max Marx started cooking an enormous octopus that we managed to catch an hour ago. It’s probably enough for us all and then some.” Rayleigh smirks slightly, then glances at the cadet who’s playing with a giggling Shanks.
“Hey kid!” He calls out and the boy snaps up with a look of slight worry on his face. “You hungry? We’ll be eating in twenty minutes.”
That gets him a quick nod and Rayleigh sighs, knowing that they need to find out the kid’s name, and it’s most likely his job to ask. Maybe later.
“Alright. Food should be done pretty soon. Make sure ‘he’ doesn’t sneak off somewhere, or gets lost.” Rayleigh glares at Roger and points at the kid, who gives him a funny look.
“What’s your name by the way? Oooh, are you gonna give us one of those cool aliases that teenagers do? Like, umm, Dagger, or Crocodile or something?” Roger starts guessing, and Gaban gives him an unamused look. Rayleigh pinches the bridge of his nose. If he keeps doing that, his nose might get dents on it.
“Name.” He snaps, and the marine straightens up, putting up his right hand in a salute. That causes him to wince, since he also raised his arm, which is connected to his injured shoulder.
“Mon- uhhh, Dragon, sir! I’m a cadet from the 56th branch. Sir.” The kid, or, Dragon, stands there awkwardly, before Roger hums.
“Guess you don’t need a cool alias with a name as cool as that.” He murmurs and rubs his chin, thinking a little.
“Wrong ship, kid. No need to salute and do any of that fancy stuff.” Gaban raises his hand to reassure Dragon, who slowly loses the salute.
“It’s a pretty good name. Sounds like something an eccentric person would name their kid. Your parents gotta be proud to have a son like you.” Roger hums and the kid looks devastated at the words. Gaban wacks his captain’s head, and the man gives him a confused look.
“We need to talk.” Rayleigh stands in front of his captain, hands on his hips.
Both Gaban and Rayleigh drag their captain out of the room, leaving the possibly evil or traumatized teenager in the infirmary. Roger pouts when they close the door and drag him a few meters away from it.
“I know that look in your face Roger, and I don’t like it. We aren’t keeping a marine that we literally met three days ago, while for most of those three days he was passed out with a fever.” Rayleigh gets in his captain's face, while the man puts his hands up in mock surrender.
“Well, we can’t really drop him off at Mori Island since it’s uninhabited - probably for a reason - but Ilisia could be our best option since we can just leave him at the marines' doorstep.” Gaban suggests, his captain tensing up a bit.
“Slight problem with that.” Their captain chuckles and both crew mates slowly turn their head at him.
“What did you do?” Rayleigh grabs his captain’s shoulders and the man gives him a slightly nervous look.
“It’s not what I did. He can’t really go back to the navy at the moment. Or ever, probably. It’s more his story to tell, he only told me very little.” Roger waves his hands around and Rayleigh narrows his eyes.
“What did he tell you?” Gaban crosses his arms and leans on the wall. Roger stays silent, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Captain, why can’t we drop him off at Ilisia Kingdom?” Rayleigh takes a deep breath and looks Roger in the eyes. The man looks away and frowns a little.
“I think he shot a Celestial Dragon. Pretty sure you get executed for even defying one, so we can’t really drop him off there.” Their captain grimaces and Gaban pinches the bridge of his nose.
“We can go to Ohara, but I doubt that we’ll have enough things to last the trip. Plus, I don’t think we have enough oats and almonds to make enough milk for the baby to last that long.” He sighs and buries his face in his hands. Roger frowns and Rayleigh nods.
“Ilisia it is. We’ll keep the kid for a bit more, until we get to an actual safe island, or he just jumps ship from getting sick of us.” The first mate says and Roger looks at him with slight stars in his eyes.
“I’m glad you stopped assuming that he was gonna kill us all in his sleep.” Gaban snickers, getting a glare from the blonde.
“We’re keeping him!” Roger cheers, getting his mouth covered by Gaban and a hit on the shoulder from Rayleigh for being too loud.
“Only temporarily!” The blonde hisses. “Only until we get to an island that’s safe enough for him to stay there.”
Gaban scratches his cheek a bit, thinking. “What about Shanks?” The navigator asks and Roger’s eyes widen slightly as he looks at Rayleigh.
“What about Shanks? Well, we’ll probably leave him with Dragon. Since he took care of the kid beforehand, he’ll take care of him now.” The swordsman says with a casual tone and their captain gives them a miserable look.
“But we bonded with him! We can’t just leave the little baby all alone with another… little baby.” Roger throws his hands up and Gaban snorts at his captain calling Dragon a baby.
“Well, we can’t just keep him. He’s a baby, and we’re pirates. We can’t take care of babies!” Now Rayleigh throws his hands up.
Before they can get into a full blown argument, Max Marx walks into the hallway, giving his crewmates a funny look.
“It’s lunch time. There’s a lot of food, but it’s better to get there before you only eat the leftovers.” He scratches his chin and walks off, leaving the arguing crew members in the hallway.
Rayleigh gives Roger a look before opening the door to the infirmary, looking in to see Dragon slumped over the crib, watching over a cooing Shanks.
“Lunch is ready.” The older man calls out, startling the cadet slightly before he schools his expression and stands up.
“Do I bring Shanks along?” He tilts his head and Gaban snorts over Rayleigh’s shoulder.
“Do babies eat meat?” The navigator asks with a smirk and the boy looks embarrassed.
Dragon quickly walks past them and goes left, to which Roger grabs the back of his shirt and turns him around, directing him to the galley.
“A bit hungry, amiright? I’m also hungry, I haven’t had breakfast yet.” Their captain says in a jolly tone, patting the kid’s shoulder.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
Dragon ate a quarter of the octopus.
Millet Pine and Doringo made a bet on how much he would eat before someone intervened.
“That’s… a lot of food. Should leave some for the rest of us.” Roger jokes and claps the boy’s back, which causes him to choke up and nearly cough out a lung. Dragon looks at the captain after nearly choking to death and wipes the sauce dribbling down his chin.
“Sorry. I just thought there was enough for all of us and then some.” The teen looks worried and Roger gives him a reassuring smile.
“No worries! Eat as much as you want!” Roger claps the boy’s back again, nearly knocking the poor kid into his plate of food, if it wasn’t for him catching himself.
Shakky snickers which causes Rayleigh to glare at the boy’s direction. The teen stares at his plate, as if he wants it to turn into a hole and swallow him to escape the glare of the blonde swordsman. The plate, unfortunately, does not do that, but Gaban quickly comes to the rescue by throwing an arm over the man’s shoulder and asking him to make a list of supplies needed for their future visit to Ilisia Kingdom.
After a little while Dragon finished the food and left for the infirmary, which led to him getting lost for half an hour before Millet Pine found him and dragged him back to the medbay.
Roger joined him in the infirmary after finishing his meal and discussing any other plans with his crewmates. The pirate captain yapped a bit about said plans, but Dragon didn’t listen much, with the humming in his ears and being preoccupied with looking at the baby.
He thinks over his options, first by how the incident even happened, then by what he’s supposed to do now. He can’t go back to the navy— scratch that; he won’t go back to the navy.
Not after taking part in that genocide. He still feels sick thinking about it, about those innocent people who were slaughtered, all for a prize. All for a game. A game he participated in.
Dragon covers his mouth with his hand, vision blurring slightly as he looks down at Shanks, who is dozing off. He chokes back tears and grips the edge of the crib with his other hand.
The muffled noise of Roger talking tappers off and he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. How will he ever face his dad again? He surely had to know about this. He’ll know about how Dragon defied the Celestial Dragons and how he participated in their sick game. Did he know about the huntings of the island natives? How they were slaughtered by these Celestial Dragons, the people at the top of the World Government, who are meant to protect innocents? Did he know?
He brings his other hand up to his mouth, trying to keep himself from throwing up. That red haired woman. She was bleeding alone for hours, waiting for someone to help her babies. And he couldn’t even do that. He failed Shamrock. Dragon lurches forward slightly and gentle hands quickly pull him up and onto “his” bed.
He failed her. He wasn’t able to protect her children. He wasn’t able to protect anyone.