Chapter Text
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams,
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
-Edgar Allan Poe; To One in Paradise
It is a horrible storm. Steadily getting worse now. Rain flutters like billowing lace where it puffs and whips wrathfully into the world. Buggy watches a black skirt strung along the laundry line between shop buildings snap in the wind, seesawing like a broken log pose needle. If he squints, it could pass as a jolly roger. Somebody ought to get those washing in before they grow wings.
Another tear in the current whistles through, this one strong enough to tip a flower vase on a window sill over the edge. It smashes against the cobblestone at the bottom rung of some bar’s backstairs, missing Buggy by several inches. The sky rumbled.
He ought to get out of the storm too. He knows that, but he can’t seem to get himself moving. His feet hurt. Though that has to be illusory. He didn’t run that far to send his muscles into aches.
Buggy wonders if Shanks is still back there where he left him. He hopes he’s smarter than that. Not even Captain’s bequest can shelter him in this downpour, not least when it’s going sideways. Then again, Red’s not famous for making the smartest choices when it comes to safety.
This will be the last time I worry about that red-head, Buggy thinks soberly and tries not to notice how hollow he feels now that he’s run out of rage. Hollow and so very sad. So very lonely. He misses the Oro he can almost hurl with the longing. He misses the small little things. Like the nicer cot in his shared cabin; the mess hall bench closest to the bar that makes the funny creak; the smooth stern railing where it’s gotten a newish lick of paint; the spot just big enough for Buggy and Shanks to fit where Donquino sits at helm.
It's all in the past now.
He feels his face crumple when his chest gets tighter and tighter. It aches like the bruise of a punch. He’s not sure how he’s still drawing breaths when it hurts so bad. He tries to breathe it out. That was always Rayleigh’s first recommendation when he’s feeling too much—and great, it just makes it worse because now he misses the vice-captain too. He’s never stopped, to be honest. It’s been a year since the dissolution of the crew. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get through the rest of his life if this is the limbo he’s stuck in.
It takes him the good of ten minutes to get a semblance of composure again. He wipes tears and rain-soaked face with a sodden arm sleeve and blows out a cleansing sigh.
It’s all in the past now, Buggy tells himself once more.
He needs a game plan.
So, right, his plan of a lifetime might have just blown up in his face because Shanks is being stupid. But if people could die of a broken heart he would’ve been fit for a coffin last week; Captain was executed last week. In no way Shanks ditching their promise could have topped that.
Now, Buggy either gets busy living or gets busy dying; since Loguetown is going to the dogs, the latter is so much easier to do. The streets may be empty now but the island is choking with pirates and marines alike waiting out the storm—those lagging at the hind of the start of the grand race Captain Roger had set off. Either species is a thorn on everybody’s sides and both have a taste for slim pickings like him. Buggy can deal with those who are just looking for a pittance to pay their rum tab (a flying hand, a few daggers, a couple of stabs here and there…). It’s his small infamy that’s the trouble.
Another thunder breaks the sky.
If the storm doesn’t get him first, of course.
He can’t do it on his own. So what he ends up doing is visualizing Rayleigh’s voice. Right, you gotta get out of the rain first, Buggy.
It works. He starts moving. He stands. Come on, kid, best foot forward, or whichever foot’s still working, we’re not picky.
Buggy walks the street. What now? Game plan. Game plan. He needs to get out of here. He shouldn’t be here in the first place. He knows nobody else on the crew came to see Captain off. If Buggy’s even a smidgeon more mature like they are, he could’ve spared himself the agony.
Yet, when he thinks about Roger as he kneeled at that towering scaffold, or staked in his boyhood beach for three tides, or lowered into an unmarked grave by some syphilitic sexton; when he thinks about how lonely the Captain might be the entire time without there being at least one or two familiar faces, Buggy stops gurgitating regrets. He can take the agony in his stead.
His legs carry him towards the harbour. He has no business here. She’s only open to the Marines or trade and passenger liners. He stops himself where the market opens up to the sea, black as death, his view dominated by hundred handsome vessels sheltered in the mooring, rollicking in the storm’s spit.
A pirate with a shred of wit knows better than to dock their galleon out here; the sloop that he and Shanks had been managing between them is sleeping on a cove out west, past the town and a cedarn wood.
Where are you trying to go, Buggy? Rayleigh asks. What are you trying to do?
Steal the sloop? He risks running into Shanks if he finds his way back there. And anyway, the impulse isn’t strong enough to get him moving. Because despite his previous claims, despite his aching wrath, he really loves that idiot and it is a curse upon his soul. He worries for Shanks, even with the bitterness of his betrayal thick in his throat. Foolish, reckless Shanks who doesn’t seem to ever plan for anything farther than the next Sunday, runs headlong towards people twice his size, doesn’t take care of himself before others. In separation, someone’s gotta go. Screw that guy—and yet Buggy wants the sloop for him, because Buggy can take care of himself better, smarter and flashier.
“Me and my dumb big heart…” he mumbles as he looks around for his next best option. He just wants to lie down now, truthfully. Stowaway in some middling-sized looker, get a free ride out of here. It’ll buy him time. He’ll make some kind of plan when he finds the next shore, wherever that is.
A looker, Gaban suggests. Preferably overburdened and going for trade, swear up and down someone hired you for something. Instead, as Buggy scans up and down the harbour for the lucky nominee—for some ungodly reason—he zeroes in on a particular Marine liner.
Beside her many brethren, she’s practically ugly. Her paints are faded and fouling. Sea spray had left corrosions along all her metal fittings, apart from some sections clearly recently replaced. Her hull is pitted, a nursing for marine hitchhikers, her portholes salt-streaked. Really, she could use some dry-docking upkeep at once.
Or someone should see the old lass retired, says Old Blumarine in Buggy’s head, tut-tutting. Ya think? He asks. Them Gulls know nothin’ ‘bout loyalty, Buggin’, they gunna use her ‘til her back breaks. You’d be doing milady a favour.
So it happens, Buggy stands there in the lashing rain for a good five minutes, having delusions of taking the Marine schooner from the inside out in a sudden but violent and vengeful bout. If she’s going to the sea dogs soon, how hard could it be? Even weak little Buggy can take her on, probably.
And Blumarine’s right about the Navy’s loyalty. A great vessel isn’t homeport and family. Just another workplace.
Stow away. Wait until they leave port. Space a few days to set the explosives. Slit some throats. By the time the ship goes up in flames and fireworks, Buggy will have drifted off in a dory with the small riches he would’ve plucked along the way. He could see it vividly—help a galleon retire, strike a blow to the Marines, earn some dough. Need he more reason?
Take care, sweetheart, they’re not all bad people. Rayleigh’s been forever trying to teach Buggy not to hate the Marines. Phooey, Vice-cap, they killed my father last week.
And that seems to decide it.
Stowing away has always been a matter of timing. In a storm though—who the fuck cares what rat sneaks by, or fly in.
The old crew had gutted a Marine ship more times than Buggy can count. Next to trade convoys, they’re the best to steal provisions from. They’re always more or less built the same way and even in the toss of the wind and darkness, Buggy negotiates through the galleon’s belly without difficulty. He can tell by the furnished stocks that the vessel is probably due for a voyage in days if not tomorrow. He checks out his hidey hole. Stashes provisions for the week. Plans his route around the void spaces and stores, avoids anywhere near the bilges. Only after he settles in for the night that he actually notices he’s shivering to his bones.
He wants to be in denial. It’s hard to do that after the months he’s had. It’s never sunk in this completely before; that stage of grief has run its course. The era of Roger Pirates has really come to its conclusion now. And now the era of Buggy and Shanks is closing its chapter too.
He’s going to be a common pirate now? Is this really it? Buggy was sure Shanks was meant for so much more. In his heart of hearts, he still is sure. He remembers all the things they wanted. He hates how big of a space Shanks is taking inside there.
Buggy could still go back. He could catch the sloop, probably find the red-head in his usual cot, drinking his problem away like he’s been doing for weeks now. They rented a room at an inn for a couple of days before but with the crowding, they’d given it up. All the money they’d saved from that had went to the alcohol store.
Buggy remembers, even before that last quarrel of a lifetime, looking over at Shanks and pulling his lip up in distaste. He doesn’t want his fate to be cleaning up after a drunkard and having to drag a man out of his morass of laments for the rest of time. Even if some of those look the same as his. But Buggy could do without it hurting or having to shiver for ripping himself away.
It’s just fear, he tells himself. Past their departure from Grand Line waters, they already had to contend with a dozen two-bit pirate captains trying to earn petty fame by bagging the Roger Pirates’ former cabin boys—the few who recognized them in size and shape. It’s going to be tough without the little swordmaster watching his back; so it must be this fear of having to do the heavy hauling on his own. Buggy’s lived with fear all his life. He can manage. Who needs Shanks? Just a convenient dispatcher.
In his turbulent mind, a superstition from East Blue is in ardent revival, one Buggy’s heard before while he hangs from the back of a red coat, or sat on a lap beneath a funny moustache: If you come off the sea with a sick heart, a ghost wind will follow you, so learn to be forgiving, y’hear, Bugs?
But tonight Buggy can’t bring himself to forgive anybody. Not Shanks. Not—
Is Shanks thinking of him too?
Has he taken shelter in the sloop?
Is he drinking himself to death?
Is he okay?
He fights the urge all night long. Once, he almost got up. Once, he catches himself reprimanding his ludicrousness, half the words ringing in Rayleigh’s droning voice, as if Shanks is an organ he’s trying to live without. He never stops shivering.
It’s the cold, he tells himself next. So in the end he gets up and roams the hall, halting when a draught shoves a door open to his right, searches his way into the one open locker for something dry to change into. He’s blind changing into some guy’s uniform, mind in the deep gutters, when the door creaks open.
Buggy squints eyes with a scarred-face Mariner, a captain by his rig, in the light of the gas lantern he’s holding up. The rain and his dripping coat fill the pause between them. Fuck, I’m gonna die. He’s going for the knives strapped to his belt when the man says, “Seaman Recruit Troy Golding?”
Buggy goes, “Err.”
“You weren’t at your post,” the man says, his voice taking up a bit of derision. Curiously it melts away in an instant. He clears his throat. “Well, never mind. I’m here to inform you your watch partner, Seaman First Class Jack Bane, has just been removed from duty. He has been detained under pretrial confinement on allegations of multiple sexual misconducts, involving assaults and harassment of subordinates and trainees.”
He pauses to gauge his reaction.
Clearly, Buggy’s given the mariner the wrong impression, thanks to his costume—or is it the right one? Buggy’s not so stupid as to think he can take on a captain class proper. He gives the man only silence not because he doesn’t understand, but because there’s nothing to contribute to this news he’s been given. Not from his standpoint. Evidently, he’s not Seaman Recruit Troy Golding. Doesn’t know some Jack Bean.
“Some of your fellow rank and seniors,” Scarface goes on, rattling more marine recruits by names that go into one of Buggy’s ears and straight out the other. “They’ve elected and been dispensed to remain on-shore to participate the trial, henceforth, temporarily transferred under the command of Captain Ruta. I am extending the same option to you now, if you are in a position to testify.”
There’s a risky rope to toe. A case of mistaken identity is one thing. Being enrolled into a whole cauldron of mess is quite another. Are they going to march him down to the Loguetown Marine Base to be handed over to that Captain Ruta? He can run after that, sure, but what then? Find another vessel?
Buggy’s gaze falls to the clothes he’d peeled off his back. They’re all in a heap in the dark but he knows they’re there. The paisley purple sash Rayleigh handed down to him since he liked it so much. The black bandana Spencer gave him on his last birthday on Oro. The gloves Shanks bought for him when they beached only weeks back, because Buggy’s last pair was slashed by some pirate goon B. It’d look weird to pick those up now, he’ll give himself away. Seems a sad, sad waste to lose all of these tiny treasures in this instance.
Get a grip, man, Spencer says rationally.
Buggy would rather jump overboard than get himself killed over sentimentality. Staying would be risky. The real Troy Golding, when he shows up, will debunk Buggy’s claim to his name in no time. Although… if he can make sure the man doesn’t show up, if he can wear him and walk these halls unseen, won’t that make Buggy’s self-appointed enterprise aboard jolly old miss so much easier? Is this crazy thinking? How foolhardy is this plan of his?
Probably no foolhardier than the first time the torching scheme rolled about, says Gaban.
“Are you well, Seaman Golding?”
Buggy, having chuckled at the former navigator, starts and turns wary eyes to Scarface who probably thinks he’s lost it, if the pitiful look he’s throwing him right now is any indication. Buggy ought to stop talking to the crew’s voices in his head.
It’s a funny regard, honestly. Why pity him? Why ask some nobody recruit about his well-being?
Oh. Is he thinking perhaps Troy has been a recent victim of Jack? The puffy, bloodshot eyes won’t have helped his case.
“I’m fine… Sir,” Buggy says, the polite address lagging a second; ready respect for a Navy man, however base, is a reluctant bandit in him. “And. No. I’d like to remain at my post.”
“I see. Very well then. But I’m relieving you from duty. Til we’re seaworthy, I’ll leave one of the men from head office to fill-in.” That’s a breed of kindness, Buggy supposes. Captain Scarface gives him a lingering look like he wants to say something else, then says in a kinder tone which all but confirms Buggy’s reckoning, “You may report to one of the warrant officers in the wardroom before you return to post if you’re… in any discomfort.”
Buggy gives nothing back. It’s not the most flattering light to be perceived in, certainly, whether or not young Troy was preyed on and savaged. But the sentiment is only a card in a full deck. Buggy can hold on to it until he can torch the whole game. Ultimately, he’s not the poor bugger they’ve taken him for.
Captain Scarface makes to leave, but not before his earlier derision makes a brief return, if only to restore usual standards between cadet and commanding officer: “Your uniform should go with the military-issued boots. And where’s your salute, lad?”
Buggy stands and makes his first Marine salute. He feels like a scarecrow. This isn’t his colour and that isn’t his Captain. How far can he take this, he wonders.
Far, apparently.
As luck would have it, Troy Golding was a man with blue-hair. He was unfriendly and unliked; so unliked, in fact, nobody seemed to either notice or protest the red nose he certainly didn’t have on his face before (hardly unusual feature when there’s a blue-nosed half-mink and tentacle-bearded fishmen twins among their ranks). Most if not all of the crew are hungover, at any rate; interludes at shore always go the same way for sailors looking for comfort after a long voyage with only bitter aged rum to keep them alive, not to mention, they have the Pirate King’s death to toast to; a slightly different face of some blue-haired fool goes over their heads easy. And Buggy had looked for the guy above and below deck but if he was supposed to be on watch last night, well, he definitely ghosted on the job.
He finds out later, when he returns to the same locker, that it is most likely Troy never intended to return before the vessel rolled out into the deep again. Because in addition to his two full seabag issues, the young man had ditched a packet of forms clearly some sort of service contract, a pair of dog tags with no chain and a common access card with a potpourri of numbers on them, which is convenient. A Marine Code would be handy for when an occasion arises, since with his aberrant luck Buggy has never gone too long before he’s bumped in the rear-end with ‘occasions’. Whatever’s the case with the real Troy, he just made Buggy’s life much easier.
Impersonating a Marine doesn’t take much when the vessel carries more people than the chores she needs accomplished. Although plainly that has nothing to do with the question of her being shipshape. The halyards and rigging and sails are fine things up close, he grants them that; there’s no hope of thriving out at sea with frayed ropes. But one does not appreciate Silvers Rayleigh’s finicky orientation until one is living off of a ship he isn’t in charge of. At least four things are not done right according to Buggy’s compass.
He doesn’t make it his problem. Buggy’s spending his first day dawdling, filing faces, names and ranks in his mental coffers and napping in the gunroom. He may or may have not pissed off some lieutenant commander between one of those donkey work. Unfortunately, he is forced to change his strategy pretty soon.
The thing is, the Marines are terrible gossip. Jack Bane’s arrest is a sensation aboard and it hasn’t escaped the sailors that Troy Golding had been part of the unit training under the pervert. Though Captain Scarface has addressed the case on the first morning assembly with threats of corporal punishments for any mud-slinging up and down this honourable deck towards any personnel bedevilled by the accused, his effort doesn’t stop eyes following Buggy in and out of a room, or stop mouths moving.
“Did something happen?”
“That’s the last guy who got bent, they say.”
“Poor sod, ain’t he new?”
Buggy can feel their curiosity getting under his skin. But self-preservation (and late-night conversations with imaginary pirates, which totally doesn’t happen anymore) and the grief too, he thinks, cool his blood to a degree. He reconciles with the situation he put himself in. And anyway, he’s going to torch this place. What will any of this matter?
They look at him oddly. So Buggy keeps himself busy instead, head bowed, constantly moving about, kills time with odd jobs. Soon, the slackers note that he’s volunteering for the nasty, punitive chores. The newer deckhands whose duties he’s taken over leave him to his designs, which honestly kind of helps, even if they’re only glad to do so because they’re a nauseous and unhappy folk, still looking for their sealegs. People have made conclusions about him throwing himself into work. But whatever. It keeps the suspicion off his back when he’s just discarded as an equipment in the peripherals. And if it helps distract him from the constant ache of that hole Shanks blew open beneath his ribcage, it is a bonus he is silently grateful for.
Buggy doesn’t really stop thinking about Shanks.
It’s early days, the betrayal too fresh. The big fuck-this-Marine-ship scheme distracts him, sure. But nothing’s stopping Buggy’s fraying heart from remembering how it had hurt to feel like a discard, and to know it’s been holding a worthless promise close for more than half his life. A part of him is still in disbelief, keeps asking—we won’t keep a ship together? We won’t go for Laugh Tale in concert? We won’t find the One Piece hand in hand?
Turns out Shanks didn’t see it fit for an aspiration anymore. There’s no ‘we’ in this new ambit. Buggy had been so sure too—what fool he was. So here he is now. He’s outside of his body most hours of the day. He’s kind of falling to pieces, in all honesty, staring at a dream in the midst of its collapse. It is watching a punctured craft capsize in heaving seas. It repeats in his head.
Would be so much easier if he’s only just angry. If anything, this new reality has taught him that he’s only ever been annoyed at Shanks. Buggy thought he’d known heartbreak when he couldn’t swim anymore. And then thought he’d suffered the worst of it the night before the execution when the longing for bright, simple days hurt the strongest. Seems like he’s learning it anew every day now. Having to live with the loss of Captain Roger and then walk away from Shanks too.
Even the Mother Sea seems to commiserate. Rain dragging past mornings, the sun romps about the other side of the sea, barely long enough to dry the deck in a stretch, fog robbing any sight farther than a stone’s throw.
Predictably, as this kind of condition is prone to herald, all the sailors grow low-spirited. Ghost stories come about, passing through the crew like coats changing hands. The men don’t like scary things. They want something acceptable so they don’t go to sleep dreaming of ghouls. So they exonerate the ghosts before long.
“The devils are weeping. Their king just got beheaded,” says one man. A few cots down, Buggy closes his ears. But he can hear them anyway. Different mouths, the same story, a dead man blamed. “We’ll be fine once we leave East Blue.”
Captain Scarface is actually Captain Bear—which is his actual name. Buggy finds this out when he’s taken to task the removal of chamber pots from the officers’ cabin, his being the second one, right at the heel of pump duty: unlike Oro’s chain pump, this liner employed the older elm-tree pump and he’d had the (not) pleasure of discovering working on the former was much less tiring. Ships always took on more bilge water after a storm, never mind the leaking, and the wise thinking is he might as well take on other dirty jobs thereafter.
“Are you on punishment detail, Seaman Golding?” Captain Bear—pfft—asks.
“No, Sir.”
I heard you cleaned the animal pens this afternoon as well.”
Buggy gives him a puzzled look. “They were dirty?” he replies. He’s of the mind that marine captains should be much too busy to pin down recruits’ schedules. What’s the bear on about?
“Aye. And around these parts, the honour goes to the first lucky chap that gets into a scrap. Never goes too long before someone steps up. So’s the bucket duty.”
“Oh.” Well, crap. Good one, Buggy, way to bungle your anonymity. “Then, I’ll… finish with here and find something else to do.”
“Get cleaned up before anything else. And I see you’re still not in the right boots.”
“Ah… Yes, sir.” Buggy turns to leave with his bucket of crap when the marine officer clears his throat. He makes a face, thinking he’s going to get reprimanded for forgetting to salute yet again.
But no. Apparently Captain Bear simply has something more to say. “I’m obligated to remind you we have the NRC counsellors on a Den Den hotline, and any fighting bodies belonging to the Navy outfit are welcome to use it in time of need.”
Buggy stops at the door, processes the meaning behind these errant words. “What’s that?”
“The Navy Reserve Chaplains.”
Me? Talk to a fucking priest?
“It’s a start, son.”
Buggy bites his runaway tongue then says in a manner that suggests the man should definitely put a nail on the coffin of that sort of suggestion, “I’m good, Sir.”
There’s a pause as Captain Bear considers him and his rude tone. Buggy does not wait for his dismissal and slams the door. He strides aimless down the upper deck. He shakes and scoffs with laughter. Honestly. What a turn-out. What a fucking joke. Son to the greatest pirate. Apprentice to the Dark King. Partner of would-be, should-be next Pirate King. And he’s now playing the part of some fake, molested Marine boy.
There are some advantages to being on a Marine ship he can’t deny.
Buggy knows they’re heading south for the Calm Belt. But it isn’t a scary prospect when the hull is lined with seastones, bypassing the risk the Reverse Mountain imposed on cruisers seeking the Grand Line. There’s hardly any harassment for a change. Most ocean lurkers speed off at the sight of these seagull-painted sails. Watch duties are split methodically with plenty of substitutes to go in between. It must be why the soldiers let their guard down without difficulty.
How easy it would be if Buggy too is a simple sailor without an adventure of a lifetime branded to his soul. Perhaps then he can just breathe easy for all these perks. Because he won’t have to prefer the risk or the incursions. Doesn’t have to miss some eccentric doctor living with a whale at the foot of the mountain or some red-haired fool who would give a limb to protect him from marauders.
A sampling with his observation haki tells him most of the marines aboard are of common stock.
Physically, in fool’s honesty, these are men and women with more things in common with him than anyone on Oro’s deck. He’s registering a few monsters on board which has to be the vessel’s top chain. As one ordinary recruit, Buggy hasn’t seen them. There’s a clear subdivision between the crew, and that tells him the guesting bigwig embarks with his or her own staff. Most of the deck stewardship is carried by Captain Bear, administered through the mean and pedantic Lieutenant Commander Fifty who, unluckily enough, really hates Buggy’s guts.
Fifty has found him wanting from the moment he caught Buggy slacking off in the gunroom. Despite ‘Troy’ dutifully ticking off his assignments and more from his second day, which is necessary as a smokescreen since Buggy’s planting his fireworks in between, it seems first impression is hard to shake off. He’s always levelling a suspicious glare in his direction, leaving comments with not-so-vague spite with little care for volume if he passes by. He does this to select other recruits too, depending on his mood, either towards the weedy-looking ones or the signal layabouts. Buggy has blown his face with acid bomb about seven times thus far—mentally. And he’s cussed back twice.
Thrice, as the saying goes, is the charm.
“What was that?” Fifty snarls, turning to swagger back down the line and sets his glare on Buggy squarely. “Was that cheek I heard from you, Seaman Golding?”
Ah, fuck.
“Just your imagination… Sir.”
“Was it? Because I thought I heard you say something along the lines of, ‘we oughta holystone your brown arsehole too.’ Is it that you don’t agree with what I said about the sloppy job you lot pull here, hm?”
He can feel the men around him tense. By no means Buggy wants to pick sides, and he can’t vouch for the others on his team nor does he care a single mote for them. But Buggy has been working his butt off holystoning this waist deck and nothing about the result says he deserves Fifty’s ire.
Blumarine taught him no good sailor worth his salt insult old bones (This is putting aside the fact he’s going to blow the joint; the insult there is meant for the people aboard, not the vessel—yes, Buggy’s logic is flawless). He grew up knowing no chore was too big for even Roger’s senior shipwright who serviced their home energetically—and he was a man over sixty with a busted kneecap and crooked spine—so him and Shanks took their ship maintenance chores seriously. Of course, to compensate, they slacked like kings when they had galley duty, much to Mille Pain’s endless frustration.
The point is, it’s just not in him to do it slapdash. So he says, “If you really want an answer, no, I don’t agree that it’s sloppy. The ship’s just been ugly the entire time, Sir.”
Naturally, the boring lieutenant commander doesn’t find that funny.
“Would you swing for that?”
Buggy stares up at Fifty, a second passing for effect. “Pardon, Sir, are you just rude or telling me the Navy resort to hang their recruits for backtalk? Rather counterproductive in an age where pirates outnumber Marines three to one.”
Buggy sees the backhand before it lands a bruise on his cheek. In any normal situation (where he’s not Troy Golding), he’d have detached his head to dodge and then stabs the other guy fifty times from his blindside while he’s in shock. But Buggy can’t resort to his Devil Fruit power, not if he wants to stay undercover.
“I’ll not stand for that kind of tongue, Golding,” says Fifty. “It appears you’re in desperate need for a fucking lesson so here it is. I’ll give you until dinnertime for you to rework this deck. And you’ll do it alone. If it’s not pretty by then, expect to be flogged and I will have you continue until breakfast. We’ll see how unmannerly you’ll be by then.” He huffs out with satisfaction and gives him a lofty sneer.
“I’m a good man. Count your lucky fucking behind I’ll not take your case to Vice-Admiral Garp, because unlike me he’d have thrown you overboard over that attitude. You! Watch him and make sure he does not slack or it’ll be your job.”
“Posturing bitch,” Buggy mutters after the man removes himself from stabbing range, not raising a hand to join the troop’s salute. Fifty trips on nothing but not even that stupid sight begets humour out of him. A recruit who’s looking at him like he’s crazy hands him a brush, which he takes with a numb mind.
A seagull calls overhead and he watches as it crosses the length of the ship, squinting in the sun. It takes a few more blinks more before he catches on, a stone-cold dread dropping to the bottom of his gut all at once. He clutches the handle hard enough for it to creak.
Davy Jones has mercy on his non-webbed feet, there’s Garp on this motherfucking ship.
Buggy spends hours scrubbing all manners of slime and gunk up and down that warped deck which aren’t there—because they’re already taken care of the first-time round—and it’s like he’s scourging his own brain. He knows he’s been in a fog. But he doesn’t need a brick (or a Meteor Fist) to fall on his head to tell him he’s in hot, hot water. Scratch that, he’s in boiling geyser. Grief takes a backseat.
The fact that Buggy’s hopped unwittingly onto a Marine liner belonging to Garp changes everything. Because where there is Monkey D. fucking Garp is concerned, he will never get away with murder. Even Buggy isn’t brazen enough to assume he can take on the man who went toe-to-toe with Captain, and in the worst outcome that they do come to blows, something tells him fate won’t stand by his side. It’s in the name; a D always lands on his feet. He knew he had rotten luck. But he hadn’t realized it’s this rotten.
Rayleigh would have been disappointed with him. But in his defence, Buggy’s never had that propensity to recognize haki by signature. He could at most observe, unlike Shanks who took to that sovereignty like a merfolk fry to the open sea. Buggy curses him because you can bet your bottom Belly he’s going to blame Shanks for all the shit that he’ll have to put up with for the rest of his life. One of these days, his curses will be the death of red-hair.
Buggy starts planning his escape.
It’s a tough feat in a crowded ship. He would’ve thinned the crew out if he believes the snuffing of living beings can remain undetected by the old Vice-Admiral long enough for Buggy to paddle out of sight—he doesn’t believe in his chances by a single percentage.
He should’ve wondered why there hasn’t been orders to pursue any of the dozen pirates they’ve passed. It would hardly prove tempting for the man in charge to take down common scallywags when his freshest catch had been the greatest infamy to ever sail the Blues.
His chest caves in at the thought. Buggy claws out of that smouldering graveyard in his heart where Captain Roger is haunting all his waking hours because he’s got a job to do if he wants to leave alive and he can’t afford being distracted.
That said—a good many things are more easily said than done; if he’s hidden himself in the dark broom closet for twenty minutes to pull himself together at this critical juncture, nobody has to know.
Fortunately, there’s no earthly reason for Troy Golding to be expected to associate with Vice-Admiral Garp. He just needs to continue to lay low, be a good little Marine recruit, and once he can disembark—run for the hills. And then all will be well. He’ll figure out what to do, where to go once he’s out of the Navy’s hair.
At the moment, his one qualm is having to live through Lieutenant Commander Fifty looking smug to find him suitably cowed after his lesson. Bad timing. It had been hour three after he’d connected the dots and he’d spent the last two worrying Garp would appear on deck, somehow point Buggy out as the dirty, masquerading pirate he is and make him walk the plank to a jeering crowd.
It’s unfounded fear. He hardly believes Garp remembers him by face, a sound logic that comes a little slower than he liked. Come to think of it, it’s quite a miraculous turnout he hadn’t come face-to-face with the man so far. Doesn’t he ever come up for air? It’s either he has a private deck or he’s as busy as death because of the fallout of the Pirate King’s proclamation.
Buggy hopes it’s the latter. Buggy hopes Garp’s in discomfort for the rest of time. Buggy hopes Garp will have his heart smashed into pieces over and over again over his loved ones. And that’s what he deserves as the headliner who signed Gol D. Roger’s death warrant. One of these days, his curses will be the death of the Hero of the Navy.
It cannot come soon fucking enough.
Laying low sounds easy in theory, and it had been. He doesn’t understand what’s changed. Something clearly had. From zero chance encounters, Buggy keeps bumping into close shaves. Suddenly he’s catching the Vice-Admiral’s very recognizable laughter at the turn of every other corner and hearing him boisterously cussing somebody over the Den Den behind doors. Regardless, he manages to pass another day incognito, if with his knickers in a twist. A small win is a win nonetheless.
Meanwhile, following that brief dust-up with Fifty, it’s becoming clear the Lieutenant Commander has it out for him. Buggy doesn’t believe the man has the prerogative, or even dare, to bother the Vice-Admiral over a common seaman’s attitude but he seems to have gotten it in his head that threatening to do so will get Buggy’s ass moving. Perhaps Buggy shouldn’t be too quick to quip back, but sometimes one cannot help such impulses in the face of a proud mongrel. Buggy hasn’t ever been famous for his forbearance anyway. All this to say, Fifty and his disciplining penalties hasn’t been a problem unto his lot.
Until he proves to be.
See, unlike the jolly way it was on Oro Jackson (and on the honeymoon sloop), the men here eat in shifts. It’s partly out of necessity since the galley can’t hold all of the working bodies in one sitting unless the crew sit on each other’s laps at dinnertime. Outside of the occasion they order-in food to their offices, the commissioned officers are expected to eat at the same bench.
If Buggy knows anything about the old man, ordering in doesn’t seem like a Garp thing to do. So here’s where another thanks needs to go towards Buggy’s wayward luck because his shift had never coincided with Garp’s. Since there’s a change in the wind, he’s been forced to stagger his mealtime just to be on the safe side.
It is the shift’s tail-end for the second breakfasters. Buggy comes in for whatever’s left on the buffet table. “You there,” comes the dog barking. Here we go again. “Fetch me another cup of coffee.”
Buggy diverts to get Lieutenant Commander Fifty his morning sludge as bid, dissing him six ways to Sunday on the inside like the good phoney-government sailor he’s supposed to be. Having seen the treatment he’s been receiving at the man’s hands these past few days, some crewmates send him a pitiful look. It is hardly an improvement from their previous regard for Troy, but nobody actually intervenes. They’re probably secretly happy the unpopular officer on duty has decided on his favourite punching bag for this voyage.
The problem begins here, when he sets down the cup and saucer.
“Just one? And what is my companion and I suppose to do with that, Golding? Share?”
Buggy has some choice words for him that rhyme with ‘up your shrivelled scrotum’ when he glances up and lands the gaze of the pink-haired man sitting across Fifty. Feels the gaze more than see, since his eyes are hidden behind the curtain of his long bangs. In a sea of white uniform, he is a conspicuous sight in his smart black suit, golden hoop earrings and horns; a half-mink perhaps? Buggy thinks that kind of defeats the purpose of being a Cipher Pol agent. Always recognizable in a crowd. Although, he supposes given their field of work, they’ll have a costume for every occasion.
Landing the interest of a CP agent would be the worst thing for any sailor who treasures his peace. And he doesn’t even need the rational side of his brain that resembles Rayleigh a lot to remind him that universal truth. And it is especially true now than ever.
“Pardon. I’ll fetch another cup.”
“And better be quick about it, slowpoke,” Fifty shoos him nastily.
“Hold it,” says the masked agent. “This is Golding?”
The lieutenant commander lifts a brow at his interest. “Aye. Did he do something wrong to you, Sir Who?” The man studies Buggy quietly for a moment, taking a drag from his cigarette and blowing it. This gives Buggy pause long enough to feel the first tendrils of unease settling.
He gathers his hands to his back where they rest closest to the dagger tucked in his back pocket. “Anything I can help you with, Sir?”
“I was just wondering if my memory is doing me a disservice,” says the agent Sir Who—that has to be an alias, because what living mother in their sane mind wants their child to live with that—who smiles as if to disarm Buggy. “Didn’t you help me with my things at Loguetown? I could swear you were a wee bit… taller.”
Dearest Shanks in the shore of betrayers, how are you? Things are not going swimmingly this side of the coin. Not going swimmingly at all.
“You must have mistook me for someone else, Sir.”
“I must have. Even your voice hardly sounds the same.”
Fifty takes the cue to look at Buggy with reassessing eyes, doubtless drawing troublesome conclusion to these exclaims. Buggy ducks his face to get a bit of cover from his cap as he turns to make his exit. “I’ll get you your coffee, Sir.”
“Woah, not so fast. Whoever said you’re dismissed? Hey!” Fifty actually stands and dogs his steps, grabbing his arm from behind. Buggy’s already on edge because of Garp, but even before all of this crap he’d spent months at sea with Shanks and having to meet head-on with not-so-well-wishers hoping to make easy cash off of former Roger Pirates’ cabin boys (even to him, that’s a pretty interesting tag to auction a couple of slaves).
Shanks would never have grabbed his attention like this when his back is turned. He would’ve called his name, laced their hands together, or thrown an arm around his shoulder—the one man whose touch he’d allow blindsided. Buggy ends up elbowing Lieutenant Commander Fifty on the nose by the simple command of instinct.
The man shouts and staggers back in pain. If people milling about hadn’t perked up at the sound of his nasal bone cracking, they certainly do now as he howls.
“Fuck, you bastard! Oh, you bastard!! You bugger! You filth!! Oh, I’m going to fucking kill you!!” Fifty proceeds to spit more of these as he cradles his bloody face. He stumbles back and catches his balance on the table, bumping the plates and making a blind grab for his steaming coffee and tossing it in Buggy’s direction. In his folly, most of the hot water lands on the man’s own arm but the cup hits him on the face and shatters when it hit the floor. Fifty screeches like a dolphin. Buggy’s immediate concern is still the CP agent, who remains in his seat, observing him like some lambent-eyed tiger.
“What’s this bawling fuss?”
Vice-Admiral Garp comes through the doorway, prompting the room to stand and salute. His usual aide-de-camp, Captain Bogard, who’s half a head taller than him, formerly known among the crew as ‘that guy Spencer likes to bat his lashes at,’ follows in his wake alongside Captain Bear.
It takes a Moon Isaac Jr. to face a captain-class proper, Shanks and he were frequently warned to not be stupid and even attempt. Buggy is in a room with two of those, a Cipher Pol agent, and a Vice-Admiral—and he is Garp. It sounds like the start of a bad bar joke.
Fifty points at him like the finger could kill. “This IDIOT is an unruly and unmannerly and disruptive Marine! He’s just attacked me, ME—his superior—unprovoked!”
“That so?” Garp says in that unserious drawl of his. “If that’s true, that’s not good.”
“Everyone saw it!!”
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Seaman Golding?” Captain Bear asks.
Buggy should be praying but he’s mostly blanking right now. He imagines how white his face is right now, with all the blood drained from the horror. He meets Vice-Admiral Garp in the eyes, a hot antipathy clawing up his spine. But not even all of his hate is enough to fool himself he can swashbuckle out of this bother. The smart thing to do is to avert his gaze. His temperance is horribly weak at the moment.
“I didn’t mean to, um.” He gulps, clearing the crack in his voice. “I was taken by surprise… Sir.”
“He should be held down and flogged!”
“Calm down, man. He just said it was a mistake,” Garp says.
“He fucking broke my nose!”
Bear takes a dim view of his response. “Lieutenant Commander Fifty, you will refrain from using such language with the Vice-Admiral. Your injuries do not give you leave to be disrespectful in turn.”
Fifty briefly fights himself from cussing in Bear’s face, eventually insincerely gritting out, “A-apologies, Sir.”
“’s fine. Alright, now you say sorry to him,” Garp says to Buggy, snapping him out of his daze, gesturing to Fifty.
He pauses, looking between them, then bobs his head at the lieutenant commander, confused about where this is leading to but deciding on the safest bet. “Uh, I’m sorry, Sir.”
“There we go. No hard feelings, eh, Fifty? Case closed,” Garp pronounces, clapping once. “What’s for breakfast?”
Fifty, clearly loath to let this pass without some taint on Troy, blurts out, “But he… This Marine, his character has been called into question!”
Garp stops in his tracks and lands the disdainful man a narrowed gaze, levity receding. “That’s a serious allegation, Commander.”
Fifty pales and tries to backtrack. “Well, he—actually, it was Sir Who who said Golding was the one who—”
“Wait up, who’s who wazzit?” Garp presses, brows knitted in genuine confusion.
“I think he means our guest from the CP9, Sir,” Bogard reminds him, canting his fedora at the black-gloved agent watching this unfold wordlessly. He doesn’t stand to honour the Vice-Admiral with a salute. He’s on the younger side and can’t be that high-ranking to excuse that, and it’s subtle, but there’s a certain unfriendliness underfoot. It tells Buggy a lot of where things stand between Cipher Pol and Navy officers.
“Ah, the whatchamacallit with questions for his name.” Garp nudges his chin out to holler at him. “You’ve something to say about our Marine recruit?”
“Nothing in particular. Commander Fifty has taken up an assumption all on his own. I was just wondering out loud. He seemed a bit different than the Golding I associated with.”
“Different how?” Captain Bear asks.
Buggy’s stomach starts cramping.
“Like you know a name to a face,” Who says.
Buggy reaches for his dagger.
“And you see a different one.”
He’ll lose grandly. But he’ll stab someone first.
“Well, that’s just of course,” Garp exclaims, picking his nose with a pinkie. “He has a brother. You probably remembering that one. Right, Golding? Where’s your brother at now?”
Buggy blinks at him several times, his heart pounding in his ears, the room expectant. He looks at the CP agent and then Garp, recognizing the better enemy to have on his side. His hand returns to its former position, clenching on nothing.
“At Loguetown… Sir.”
“There ya have it.” The Vice-Admiral flicks a booger and then thumps Fifty on the back. “People all make mistakes. The boy’s apologized, didn’t he? You’ve got a broad back, you oughta loosen up those shoulders. Why don’t you go get cleaned up in the medbay and take some air updeck?”
Fifty glares Buggy down something fierce. Knowing he can’t push the matter any further or ignore his superior without losing face, he stomps away. Captain Bear addresses the room and the spectators get back to their business. Bogard is talking to Who, but the agent’s interested gaze remains trained on Troy, acquiring a new dimension owing to the Vice-Admiral’s intervention in that brief exchange. Buggy, hoping to fade, busies himself with cleaning the broken plate and cup on the floor.
He flinches a bit when Garp decides to squat and help him pick the pieces. A kitchen boy bustles over with a broom soon after, shooing the Vice-Admiral in his thick South Blue accent that gets the older man roaring, and Buggy discreetly tries to take the rag from the boy’s hand.
“Belay that, lad. And come with me.” So saying, Garp walks off, hollering at men eating at other benches. Captain Bear gives him an encouraging nod. Buggy stands, numbly following in the footsteps of the Hero of the Navy.
Buggy’s only worn Troy Golding’s identity for less than a week, but it’s a safe—logical even—assumption to make, that the Vice-Admiral Garp isn’t actually acquainted with the seaman recruit.
So what did it mean that he’d chosen to side with him?
Lying through his teeth to a World Government agent who actually had good grounds for his suspicion to give some nobody soldier his support hardly seems commonplace. Even for a kooky old man like Garp. And he’s actually the bastion of a staunch, stalwart mariner, the kind decorated on enlistment posters and the like.
Maybe it has to do with spite against Cipher Pol. Maybe he doesn’t like Fifty. Either way, there remains a good chance Garp recognizes him. Buggy is positively wired as he’s left waiting for the axe to fall, sitting across the big man and Bogard while they discuss the rising price of rice over breakfast.
He can’t taste his buttered oatmeal, which isn’t that much of a shame honestly. Still. In the first place, he can’t understand why he’s been asked (forced) to join them at their table. He’s hardly computing the conversation. They don’t appear to expect him to weigh in and he doesn’t try to.
He tries some excuses. The whole lot are quickly dashed when Garp all but drags him along for a deck walk where the first thing the big man does is to shuck the morning log from the officers of the watch to Bogard. Garp’s interest on the surface seems centred on the life of the ship, the preparation for the deck gun exercises, checking out the sea and giving a hand with trimming the sails. But Buggy—despite operating with a half-dissociative mind—isn’t fooled for a minute. The old man even calls him out by name when he drifts out of sight briefly over tens of white-capped heads; “Oi, Golding! With me!!”
Garp finds a seat for him at his elbow among the navigator, master gunner and comms officers in the mid-morning meet, tasking him to the event and navigational logbook. Captain Bear wonders about his presence. Fifty keeps glaring in his direction (changed and bandaged but still an ugly, unhappy little man). Most everybody, however, seems accustomed to Garp’s capricious fancies and barely passes a glance over. Which is crazy to think because Buggy would be the last person they would want in this room while they discuss marine codes, state and shipshape affairs—what the hell is Garp thinking?
Not a whole lot, it appears. The frustrating old man is either yawning or nodding off or blandly messing with his subordinates. He’s folding a paper crane now.
Time passes in a crawl while he’s kept virtually chained to the Vice-Admiral. It’s somewhat worse than the prospect of being discovered and shoved into the brig room, having to be kept on tenterhooks for hours on end, role-playing a secretary; fetching tea; taking dictations; perform the obedient little trooper.
This carries on until Garp at last egresses from his industries and returns to his creaky office chair. He says, once Bogard leaves the room for a smoke break, “I know who you be, son. And you aren’t some Golding.”
So that’s his tactic. Wait to catch him alone. Probably thinks it’ll provide more of a challenge to nail him down. Not to mention the credit will go to him alone. Buggy can see it now, splashed across the back spread in the morning national rag; Hero of The Navy Hammers on, Another Pirate King’s Crew for the Scaffold!!
It’ll hardly be a huge score, of course. He’s only a deckhand. But as Rayleigh put it—frightful is the beast that starves for the win, not the fight. And Davy Jones knows how the World Government starves.
Buggy deadbolts the office door, kicks the stack of heavy crates behind it for good measure and cocks a flintlock at the old man while he has his hand stuck down a bag of rice crackers.
“Here I thought you’d gone soft in the head,” he says.
The Vice-Admiral is hardly fazed. “Where’s that Golding now?”
“How should I know.”
“That better means you’ve had no hand in harming him.”
Lucky sod never was here from the start of the voyage, maybe he turned over a new leaf. Buggy confirms nothing. Why give the old man a peace of mind?
“And? What’re you doing in that uniform?” Garp asks.
“Catching a free ride.”
Garp chuckles mockingly. “Ain’t hardly free if you’re scrubbing ‘til your skin comes off.”
Buggy retracts his free gloveless hand behind him, which has to be a mistake. It’s not like he’s got anything to hide. “That’s none of your fucking concern.”
Garp lands him with ‘it is actually, idiot,’ kind of look, but then scrunches his brows. “What happened to your mouth?” Buggy frowns back, not catching the drift. “Yer the kid with the loud mouth, aye? Think I’d spot you straight and fast had you whipped it about. Learn to harness it, have you?”
“Eat dogshit, old fart.”
“Hm. Come to think of it, you used to come in two-piece.” Garp leans back and bites into his cracker. “We expecting some red-head prince marching to your rescue any minute now?”
“Deadass. Better sound the alarm. He’s about to blow this tub,” Buggy bluffs.
Garp’s noisy chewing slows to a stop and his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “Hold that thought. I just remembered something. What, then… you snuck in alone? One little rip on a Marine battleship?”
“I just said he’s about to—”
“I heard you plain. By gum, what were you thinking? I knew you were raised by that madman but you always seemed the sensible one.”
Buggy’s hand on the flintlock shakes so hard it rattles in the creaky, buoying stillness of the office. “Fucker. You don’t get to bleeding talk about Captain to my face.”
Garp looks him over, a deepening in the lines of his face making it hard to put a name on his expression. He appeared strangely older in the space of a heartbeat, huffing a sigh. “Right. I don’t wonder that you hate me. Roger had warn—”
“Enough. Else I’ll blow your brain out.”
The Vice-Admiral puts down his bag of snack, cracks his neck and stands. He’s tall enough for his head to be enveloped in the shadow of a low beam when he’s on his feet. Buggy steps back and pulls the trigger. Garp tips his head. The bullet snaps past, only close enough to ruffle his hair and burrows into the ceiling in a hiss. An odd withering inside him has Buggy wondering if he regrets that it hadn’t hit the mark, or the inverse, however unconscious, more untenable sentiment.
“Okay, I’ve decided. I’m taking you in,” the man then says, without preamble.
Buggy blinks behind the smoking muzzle, finger freezing on the trigger. “Hah?”
“I’m having you by my side as, uhh, something.” He waves it off. “We’ll iron out the fine details later.”
When Buggy just stares at him, he lifts an expectant brow. “Didn’t think I used difficult words there.”
“Why do I gotta—”
“The fact is, you lousy pirate, you’re a stowaway in a liner bound for Marineford with this old fart as her rampart. Do you really wanna litmus test your devil’s luck here?”
Buggy had not taken care to know where she’s bound for. And—well. Hoooly mackerel.
The thought of that port of call sets his heart pounding harder and sweat beads at his nape. The thing is, even if he could somehow land a bullet (or six) on Garp’s spectacular steel body, he hardly thinks it’ll do the job. He’s on the losing side, whichever side of the gun he’s at. He lowers the weapon. Garp cants his head respectfully at the sight, which is annoying.
“I’m not gonna be your fucking lackey. Put me in the brig.”
“Tough. I’ll do whatever I want with you and you’ll learn to be grateful.”
I heard a shot go off.” Buggy jumps, having not heard Bogard come through the door—didn’t I deadbolt that shit?!—or noticed that he’d walked up to him. “What’s this mess now?” the swordsman asks, eyeing the gun in Buggy’s grip, his hand curling around the hilt on his waist.
“It’s fine, man,” Garp grunts. “I’m taking care of him.”
Buggy backs into a wall, better than giving either one his back, swinging his glare from one marine to the other. “I’d rather rot in Impel Down!”
“Yer a smart lad,” Garp says, ignoring him. He comes around the desk flipping through the logbook. “You didn’t even ask for guidance for this, didn’t ya? It’s plain to see your lousy pirate crew hadn’t put you to peeling potatoes year-round. You know cunning. You read, do numbers. Knows navigating a fair bit. Got a good hand. That’s plenty competence than a lot others making a living at sea have in their back pockets.”
Yes, Buggy knows, it’s why there’s always that pesky guilt every time he felt the shortcomings of his upbringing. Buggy had been loved. Buggy had found it wanting at any rate.
“Fuck does that have to do with anything?”
Garp leans against the front of his desk, the logbook tossed over his shoulder. “Never mind now. You do as I say and we’ll all gain something from this.”
The worst thing is Buggy actually thinks he’s going to make good of his words. Because, oh, he knows that look. It’s unfair how similar the Vice-Admiral is to Captain. It’s making Buggy weak. With anger, and also unspeakable things.
“Don’t dishonour me, I’m a pirate. Treat me like one. I’ve taken lives, you want me in chains.”
Garp considers him. “Bugger, was it? What are you, thirteen?”
He bristles some more. “It’s Buggy. And I’m fifteen.”
“Great galloping guppies—yer a fry, that’s what you are.”
“Fucking put me in the brig!”
“Oi Bogard, tell Bear I’m taking Golding with me. He’ll be my uh, let’s say he’s under special dispensation. Yea, that sounds like smart talk, they won’t question that.”
“Stop ignoring me!” If Buggy thinks a bit, he’ll wonder how he gets here—jumping to get himself fastened in bilboes.
“Very good, Sir,” Bogard replies without missing a beat. He turns for the door, his captain coat flaring and he levels Buggy a small grin on his way out. “Do you feel lucky, boy?” he asks and waits for no answer. Buggy watches him go feeling like his problem is growing legs now.
And then he thinks he must be ill, because in the brief moment the door opens, instead of the staid second deck hallway characteristic of the Navy, he’s seeing the warm, cherry red glow of Oro’s cabin, a fleeting and laughing apparitions of noble, silly carriages melting the way strong shadows wane when the sun goes away. Then the door closes and the mark of seagull wings spread-eagle branded against the wood mocks him in his face.
“You can’t make me stay,” he says to Garp.
“Ho-oh? I’m not above using force. You think you can give me a good fight?”
“I don’t have to. I’d rather be flotsam than get drafted in the Navy.”
Garp scoffs softly. “He didn’t bargain mercy in your name for you to go and get dead, kid.” There’s a pause where the Vice-Admiral sees that Buggy’s clearly wrong-footed by what he just said. “Didn’t your captain tell you before? Ah… forget it then.”
“Bargain what?” He presses, moving forward. “Tell me what Captain did in my name!” He demands when the old man just stares at him.
“He surrendered. On condition those on his ship get off scot-free,” Garp concedes to say, then crosses his arms and scoffs. “Brazen man. I could’ve just taken him. He was dying as it were… Ain’t you wondering why there’s no hunted news of yer old crew?”
Buggy has been rather preoccupied looking after his own and Shanks’ drunk arse between everything else. He did wonder but had always attributed the lack of news to the brilliance of his former shipmates. They can be bastards but they are Buggy’s pride; he likes to think and actively has faith they’ll give bounty hunters and government coursers alike a run for their money.
Though he thinks now even Captain, who was the best of the whole lot, for all his genius, can be so naïve.
“I wouldn’t put it past the World Government to go back on their words,” he says with no little amount of contempt. “Once a cheat, always a cheat.”
“The Government mayhap. I won’t,” the Vice-Admiral says, and the way he says it so easily has Buggy digging nails into his palm.
“Garp, not even you can keep tabs on everything.”
“Yer right, of course.” He shuffles past Buggy and hunkers down to start sorting the toppled crates, his voice drawling. “I do where I can. Humans can only do their best, after all. Oh, speaking of your old crew. Apparently, they arrested your red-headed fella in Loguetown.”
Buggy feels the ship lurch against a strong wave. “What?”
“This was, uhh, two days back? A drunk and disorderly charge, it was said. Ah, don’t sweat about it. I had him bailed out,” Garp adds when he catches his eyes again and sees the paroxysm of alarm in them, the realization of which makes Buggy want to claw out his own eyeballs. “Figured you’d like to know.”
So this is why Garp has his bluff figured out at once?
Fucking Shanks.
“Where is he now?” Buggy asks.
“Hell do I know. Probably gone and guttered in another ditch somewhere.”
The troubling reality is that might just be true.
“Relax. I might just be quite free with reprieves if they happen to catch the redhead again—‘specially if you’re here to speak on his behalf. And I’m extending that complaisance to the rest of your lousy crew I know some of which are just a few yards off going up the creek, but you’ll say you don’t believe that hogwash,” Garp adds with a sulky ‘hmph’, and the whole of this sounds so much like a reverse blackmail that has Buggy standing there in blinking befuddlement. “Oi, wanna give me a hand down here?”
He has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop that bothersome vocal reflex that has every intention to betray his need for news he doesn’t have—nor want—nor need. “I said I won’t be your lackey.”
“Oh, come on. You weren’t complaining when you took on Golding’s chores. I already told you I’d cover your troubled arse. Make light hands, fair exchange.”
“And I already told you I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, you miserable egg. Have a little more faith in chances.”
No. What Buggy should do is empty his flintlock into Garp’s heart while his back’s turned. And if it weren’t for the education of honour Captain Roger had beaten into his head, he’d be happy to pull the trigger. He stays his hand. Hate hurts in his chest. He doesn’t know if it’s for Garp or Captain or Shanks. And just as indiscriminately, he deflates.
“Actually, speaking of chores,” Garp grouses blithely, scooting sideways like a crab as he gathers miscellanies off the floor. “If you’d come forward with that book smarts of yours, you’d have been assigned elsewhere. We’ve a lot of general dogsbodies around here, half of ‘em can’t tell apart their letters from squiggles. And you could’ve easily avoided—hm? Hey, where’s your boot tag, boy?” Garp, having noticed this lack of character in him from where he is, pauses and lifts a stern face.
Buggy very nearly rolls his eyeballs to their white behinds (classic parlor trick that used to disconcert Crocus like crazy) “What’s this obsession with boots you lunatics have?”
The Vice-Admiral has no definition of operational grace to live by, made clear when he practically crawls on his fours, living up to his surname, to grab him by the ankle and stand. Buggy yelps as his world whirls. “Agh—!” He goes upside down, the cap slipping and his rolled braid tumbles free.
“These ain’t even military issue. Where’re your boots, boy?”
“Let go of me, you bastard!”
“Hey, hey, that’s dangerous flinging that ‘round, give me that.”
Garp plucks the flintlock from Buggy like he’s pulling a rat from a cat’s mouth, earning himself scratches that neither disturbed nor damaged him. He slides the trigger guard and throws that over his shoulder too where it rattles off into some messy corner. Buggy splits himself and escapes to a beam where he fumes at the one foot caught in Garp’s hand, its pair on the floor gallantly kicking the villain’s leg to little avail.
Garp makes a brief inspection of Buggy’s wiggly trotter and heads for the long bench with storage, mumbling something about, “I know I put it somewhere here, where is it now, I could’ve sworn…”
A moment later, he places a battered set of boots on the desk. “Put that on,” Garp demands, hands on his hips.
“Is this a joke?”
The Vice-Admiral grins a feral grin. “Don’t make me come up there.” The threat sounds unflinchingly sincere like he’d had plenty of chances to wrangle stubborn boys onto humbler planes before and Buggy will easily make that list. Buggy’s mind flashes the atolls and boulders flattened and shattered under Garp’s muscles that served as evidence of the sporadic encounters between the Hero of the Marines and the Roger Pirates, just to remind him that hey, he’s a big coward in the core of his onion.
He hunches into himself. It will take the ramming force of a sea king to make him admit he’s blushing, but the heat of his cheeks is hardly discreet. “I don’t… ‘em stupid…”
“Huh? Wazzat? Speak louder, brat!”
“I don’t fit them stupid man boots!”
Garp’s eyes go comically wide, his brows arching with disbelief as he peruses his offering once more, comparing it to Buggy’s foot still in his clutch. “It can’t be. But these are the smallest size. Oh. Wahahaha!! You have tiny feet, boy! Dainty as princesses come. Ah, it’s no problem. I’ll grab ya grades for lassies. I don’t got one around here though.”
“Why bother.”
“The tags, boy,” says Garp and Buggy feels the ghost of a finger making loops over his severed lower shin. “You lace yours here where it’s not in the way. It’s how we know what to call the soldiers. Where to send them home if they die in uniform.”
“Well, I’m not Troy, and I’m not here to stay,” spits Buggy, floating up in irritated boredom. “If I happen to die nameless, cast me off to sea.”
“Aye, I’ll do just that if it were up to me,” Garp grants with just as insouciant a tone. “But there’s no guarantee I’ll be the one who finds you. And I have a notion you’d want some Dark King or Red-Hair to cast you off instead. Like any man alive has a right, I can give you that much respect.”
Buggy has nothing to muster against that. It feels like a weakness. Garp bobs his head before heading for the door, heedless. “I’ll find you boots for your princess feet. Put Troy’s tag on and that’ll be the end of it.”
“You’re so certain I’ll die in this uniform.”
“It’s called being prepared. Isn’t that why you’re here? Courting death on my liner? Which you’re not leaving, by the way, without my say so. And should you happen to die, we’ll both be glad for this fix.” And then Garp leaves, presumably to the requisition storage because he comes back with the boots he promised and forces Buggy to put them on in front of him.
For his part, Buggy had bolted for the door as soon as he and his monster haki had cleared the deck, which is stupid thing to do when he knows there’s virtually no safe way to steal off in bright daylight on a patrolled battleship. And anyway, a returning Bogard drags him back, so it is wasted energy.
He’s not aligning himself with this fellowship. He just doesn’t want to risk Garp’s fist, and so he’s hunched on the desk putting on some lady boots (good size, so-so comfort, and ugly as a crime).
He’s not aligning himself… but quietly Buggy is aware keeping to the old Mariner’s side does pose a number of benefits in the present climate. Revealing Shanks’ lot to his ears is so sly of Garp. He’s trying to make the whole arrangement appear more appealing. To demonstrate he can provide news of the few piteous souls Buggy still cared about, even influence how they’re handled.
Buggy scoffs. He won’t be taken in by that cakeskin promise.
Buggy won’t be taken in by any promises ever.
And besides, in this arrangement it’s ghastly how his safety is at Garp’s whim. He’d rather an escape plan…
You’re not thinking clearly, sweetheart, says Rayleigh, and Buggy feels an imaginary tap of that old wooden stick on his shoulder. You’ve more sleights up your sleeve than you believe, none of which is of any use if you can’t make informed choices amid your perils.
Hmph. Typical Vice-Captain. He’d trust Garp in a heartbeat over Buggy taking care of his own arse, and especially if he finds out Shanks had jilted him. Given that Buggy had landed himself in this situation, infuriatingly there’s some credit to that.
“You do know I want to kill you,” Buggy says as he pulls his laces taut.
“Clear as day,” says Garp, quite at his leisure, still munching on his damned rice crackers.
“You make me pour tea for you and it’ll be your last cup.”
Garp chuckles. “Don’t worry, I can pour my own tea.”
“Better start addressing him Vice-Admiral,” advises Bogard and earns himself a glare. “At least in public.”
“He will,” says Garp smugly. “I already said he’s a smart lad. He’s cornered but he knows a good deal from a bad one. Down to the brashness, he’s just like his sire.”
Buggy is on his back on the floor before he can take the last two steps. The dagger he wants to sink into Garp rattles free from his grip across the carpeted floorboards. Captain Bogard holds him down with no effort and equally he makes no effort to throw him off. There’s astonishment across the Vice-Admiral’s face. Buggy feels his inside warp with all the blackness rotting it the longer he takes the man, and all he encompasses, in.
“I’m living a nightmare right now,” Buggy says and the weight of his voice makes him tremble. It gives them pause. He’d stopped himself from crying since leaving shore. But he can’t be bothered over the ignominy of the tear that rolls down his cheek now. “I can’t blame you for all of it. But you played your part, Monkey D. Garp. You marched him feet bound. I don’t want to hear a word about him from your mouth. I shouldn’t have to.”
Garp straightens without standing. In charity of respect that would’ve baffled Buggy in ordinary days, he smooths out the mirth on his face and ducks his head in apology. “Right. I’ll stop.” Then he signals to his aide who steps back. Buggy stands and walks out on them without another word.
He won’t even try to understand why Garp is doing this. He can’t be bothered. Probably he’s operating on some fucked up notion of reforming rotten pirates for the good of the four seas.
Still, if a reformed pirate is what he wants, it doesn’t align with why he’s playing along with this Golding career Buggy’s taken on. Is he just wayward? No. Yes. Maybe. Buggy can’t read him anywise. He scrubs his face. What a vexing turnout.
He tries to ignore that part of him that’s fiercely missing his old life. Even a sample of a sense of normality would do, he wishes for it to a point of sudden sickness. He would trade all the gold promised to him for Oro. For Captain. For stupid Shanks.
He’s updeck just as the ship’s bell chimes in a pattern unrecognizable to him—it having been rung only for hour switches so far—and he mumbles some kind of gratitude for the distraction. A pair of black-flagged galleons approach at full gust from the southwest, cannon mouths emerging from their gunports.
Buggy goes very cold and breathless for all of a moment before the sounds of shouting and running filter back. He looks down at Troy Golding’s clean boots and remembers where he is. No longer alone with Shanks on that fugitive sloop.
Down the hallway, outside the office of the Hero of the Marines—a fire flickers to life. Though quite unseen in the white shaft of sunlight, it hovers there, with no living heat to speak of.