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It’s soft, falling in love. Softer than Gaban ever thought it would be.
He’s used to far more fire, a certain roughness and sharpness and adventure in every fling in every island, but maybe this is what it feels like to have something constant, something always there. Someone to smile at him as if she’s the coming spring after a harsh winter. As certain as the freedom of the ocean tide and the fact everybody dies at some point. A bold pink sunrise.
A part of him wonders how come he didn't see her before, blind to her beauty and wits and kindness against the shining and effervescent presence of Gloriosa and Shakky besides her, but now he sees. Now he has seen her at her worst, wailing on the ground of a crumbling island, and now he sees Kassie as a slowly blooming flower, a butterfly carefully unfurling her wings in the Oro Jackson.
As soon as he realizes he's falling and falling hard, as he wakes up thinking of her and goes to sleep hoping to dream with her, as his heart stutters every time she laughs, Gaban vows to himself not to chase.
He would, he really would. On any other occasion, he would flirt and lean and conquer and it would work, but it doesn’t feel right. She’s still relatively new to the crew, having less than a year in her body sailing with Roger, and most importantly, she's his friend and Gaban knows how much that sucks, the last thing he wants is to fuck things up and make her uncomfortable.
So he swallows back his feelings and resigns himself to stay with the aching pressure in his chest for the rest of his life.
Except every time he tries, it's like drinking seawater. The more you do it, the more it hurts you. The salt makes everything worse, every smile and every look and every breath.
He realizes then, as Roger —fuck him and his inherent perceptiveness— switches knowing glances between him and Kassie and sighs and squeezes his shoulder in silent support. He realizes that if he was a coward, Roger would have never admitted him into his crew. A coward is one who gives up his dreams, he who doesn't even try, and Scopper Gaban is no fucking coward.
He's handsome, he's smart and he's strong, but most importantly, he's a navigator, which means he can chart a safe course across any sea.
He can and he will make a plan. Just you wait.
❀
First things first, he’s gotta know if Kassie swings his way and if she thinks he's attractive. He has to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any.
He hasn’t actually noticed her directing a hungry gaze at anyone, no women and no men, so maybe, in the many possibilities of uncertainty, he has a chance.
It's a navigator's privilege to —usually— choose where to go since they’re in charge of the Log Pose and so Gaban shamelessly plays the fool and directs them to a summer island.
There, of course, as they lounge around by the beach to withstand the heat until the Log Pose resets, Gaban makes it his personal mission to walk around shirtless, oceanwater glistening off his tanned skin under the afternoon sun. It’s not an unusual sight, nor particularly, he has had to take his shirt off at some point or another to do some deck work or the fabric getting cut off after injury, but —not to brag but come on— he knows he’s hot, at least on a traditional sense of word, so he’s going to use that to its full advantage.
Kassie, for all she’s always attentive, her gaze always keen and taking everything in, doesn’t spare him a second glance. Too busy building sandcastles under the shade with Shanks.
Yeah, maybe the sight was a little common.
It’s fine, Gaban isn’t deterred, he’ll have another chance. Maybe he can take them somewhere rainy next and wear a white shirt that he knows will get soaked and stick to his skin. Yeah, maybe that would work.
❀
The matter of gifts is a little more complicated.
He has no particular talent beyond fighting prowess and the skills necessary to be a good navigator sailing the Grand Line—he can’t sew or write sonnets. He can’t cook like Marx, he can’t sing like Banner. And if Kassie really wants something, she’ll buy it—after so long sailing the seas, the Roger Pirates have funds to spare and a little trinket every now and then won’t make a single dent in their coffers.
So, what could he possibly give to Kassie that she doesn’t already have? Something useful, something beautiful. Something special.
He sulks for a good couple of weeks before he decides he might actually be overthinking it and that maybe more is less, simplicity is best.
In the end, he lands on a necklace.
A silver chain with a heart-shaped pink gem as a pendant. He would’ve gone for a bracelet, but he’s noticed she doesn’t wear anything on her wrists, perhaps to avoid it getting in the way or giving freedom to her hands, and he’s a bit hesitant about the cliche color, there were other options yet this one matches her hair, but he already bought it and they’ve set sail so he can’t exactly go back to the shop that’s miles and miles away by now.
It takes him yet another week of mulling over it, wondering when he should give it to her, before he actually hands it over and he’s not ready at all but Fate has a cruel sense of humor so it presented him with the opportunity regardless.
Kassie has had a shitty day, anyone can tell. A fog fell around them in the morning and hasn’t let up, grief sits a little too heavy on her shoulders, Gloriosa and Shakky must have been outside the Rip-Off because they didn’t pick up when Kassie called, and Shanks has been particularly fussy, the boy refusing to settle down.
Gaban is doing a last minute course check by the helm, as best as he can without seeing the stars, when his eyes catch Kassie walking out of the galley and leaning on the railing, elbows leaning on it and head bowed. Even if he can’t hear it, he can see the deep sigh escaping her.
He could leave her alone, to unwind without anyone pestering her, but a pull on his gut, a tug he’s known to call instinct, tells him that she could use some cheering up.
The necklace burns in his pocket, where it has been since he bought it because he didn’t want to risk anyone finding it.
He makes sure the wood of the deck creaks under his boots so as not to startle her and simply asks as a greeting, tone gentle, “Long day?”
Kassie raises her head and tiredly smiles at him. She doesn’t respond, but she does nod.
His heart bangs against his chest and his palms are sweaty when grabbing at the necklace but it’s now or never.
“Here,” he says, lifting his fist in the air, hiding the necklace from view until Kassie reaches out to place her hand under his. “For you.”
He drops it into her palm, a lot less gracefully than he would’ve liked, and dammit, he’s usually a bit more smooth and confident about this, a man of more words than just three, but he can’t help it. He’s nervous about this because he wants this to work, he’s never wanted anything to work so badly that he feels like his knees might give out.
His breathing stutters as she peers at the necklace and his mouth dries up as she stares and stares at it, eyes wide.
Heart slowly sinking, he doesn’t say anything. He can wallow in peace later, he—
At last, Kassie looks up, her eyebrows pinched in the middle, her lips forming the slightest pout as though she wants to cry, a little sadness in gaze telling him that a part of her believes she doesn’t deserve gifts just because.
“For me?” She whispers.
Gaban heavily sighs in relief and firmly nods. “For you.”
“I—Thank you,” Kassie blurts, bringing the necklace closer to her chest, as though she wanted to safeguard it in her ribcage, but continues looking down at it, her chin dipping as though she can’t tear eyes away. “I mean, I—Thank you.”
A spark of pride ignites in Gaban’s veins but he likes to think he hides it well.
He panics for a split second when Kassie grabs his hand and drops the necklace in it but a small smile tugs at the corners of his lips when she turns around and pulls her hair over her shoulder.
If Gaban’s fingers tremble after so slightly and a bead of sweat slides down his temple as he momentarily struggles closing the clasp, there are no witnesses but him.
❀
As soon as Kassie shows up for the first time in the shortest shorts Gaban has seen on her, which are not even that short to begin with, it’s just that Kassie seems to favor full coverage pants and skirts with the occasional slits, Gaban feels a familiar itch on his nose and, in horror, runs away just in time to wipe the blood dripping down.
❀
“Scopper Gaban, isn’t it?” Shakky drawls over the bar countertop of the Rip-Off, sweetly smiling, and the hair on Gaban’s neck stands in the same way it does when a predator stalks him and his Observation Haki picks it up a second before the beast pounces.
Seated beside him, Gloriosa turns to smile at him as well, cheek resting on her palm.
Hell, even Shiloh above Shakky’s shoulder seems to be smiling.
“Yeah?”
He doesn't know what else he can reply, that is his name.
Shakky simply nods. Then, she brings out the bottles from the liquor shelf behind her, purposely slow, and Gaban curses the moment he decides he could be the one grabbing the drinks for his table. He just wanted to bring Kassie a cocktail, why are two former Empresses of Amazon Lily cornering him?
He holds back a sigh. He supposes this was coming, he should have been prepared for it. Although that won’t stop him from tearing Rayleigh a new one for gossiping and snitching.
“I’ll be simple,” Gloriosa whispers, leaning closer while still smiling. With the sharpness in her eyes, she kind of does remind Gaban of a snake. Her words are clear. “There is no person alive in this world, man or woman, good enough for Kassie.”
“But you will do,” Shakky adds, having finished the cocktail and now staring at him dead in the eye.
Gloriosa lands the final punch. “If you break her heart, Scopper Gaban, we will make your life a personal hell. Understood?”
Gaban gulps and quickly nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
Gloriosa and Shakky grin at him one last time before they send him away and he has to resist the shiver running down his spine when feeling their eyes on his back as he walks to the table, drink successfully in hand.
❀
He tries to impress her by demonstrating his might in battle, there really isn’t anything like a display of strength to prove himself worthy, but he soon realizes he kind of fumbled big time since Kassie simply runs away from the tussle with Marines back to the Jackson.
When the fight is over and it dawns on him that she isn’t on the street anymore, the Marine at his feet makes one last attempt to stop him, barely more than grabbing at his ankle to keep him here, but Gaban simply kicks him in the face and grumbles, face heated in embarrassment.
❀
They dock at a summery resort island and whoever manages this place tells them that while they can come in and enjoy the many activities despite being pirates, they will have to do so well-dressed lest they call the Navy.
Bunch of pompous hypocrites, Gaban thinks but grabs the dress pants and shirt he has for emergencies only regardless. He ditches the tie though, he won’t be caught dead in one. Besides, it’s not like his shirt can even be buttoned up all the way.
Roger is about to shoot off the Jackson’s deck, feet bouncing in place and legs filled with the urge to run held back only by Rayleigh’s firm hand on Roger’s shoulder, and they’re all ready, even Shanks—except for Kassie.
The idea is they enter all together so the resort can properly register everyone. They should’ve left ten minutes ago but they let it lay, they can be fashionably late even when they have no set arrival time, but it’s been twenty minutes since and Gaban is starting to worry because it has never been Kassie’s style to be late, not like this.
He meets Roger and Rayleigh’s gazes across the deck and they both tilt their heads in the galley’s direction and Gaban is actually about to grumble and whine and protest in general but then his worry is greater than any opportunistic desires he may have right now.
He’s proven right.
He carefully knocks on the door of her cabin and isn’t all that surprised when hearing a fumble, a sniffle and a curse on the other.
“Coming!” Kassie says but it takes her a whole minute before she actually opens the door.
When she does, Gaban’s mouth falls wide open.
There Kassie stands, a little taller than usual so she must be wearing at least short heels, not the Kuja ones, those Gaban hasn’t seen in ages and he doubts she would put them on now since the occasion doesn’t really warrant it.
Hugging her frame, her every curve and valley, is a golden dress, held by thin straps over her shoulders. The fabric shimmers in the warm lamplight when she breathes. The necklace he gave her fits perfectly between her collarbones. Her hair, often puffy from the sea breeze, falls in loose waves, tenderly framing her face. Dangling from her ears are earrings that match the dress, some sort of flowers, perhaps even native to Amazon Lily. Her lips, round and plump as they are, are tinted red, glossy when she swallows.
Wow, he breathes out, though he’s not sure if the sound actually escapes him.
And yet.
And yet!
As she white-knuckles the door, Kassie’s eyes glisten, her bottom lip wobbles. Sharply inhaling, she turns around, shoulders hunched and loudly sniffling, pulling at her dress and tugging at the fabric as if it was anything but absolutely perfect.
“I’ll be right outside,” she chokes out, scrambling for the nightstand and grabbing a tissue to dab under her eyes. “I swear, just—just give me a minute.”
And it clicks in Gaban’s head.
He takes a gentle step forward, hand stretched out. “Kass—”
“I don’t know why I bought it,” she continues, her voice all air as she tries to speak and hold her breath so she doesn’t cry further. “It was just so pretty on the window and I know it fits me, but I just—It’s all I have and we don’t have time to tailor one of you guys’ suits and I would stay behind, it’s fine, but you would refuse and we would leave and I would ruin everyone’s day and—”
“You’re beautiful.”
There, plain and simple. True.
Kassie gasps, so loud in the quiet it’s like thunder in a lonely mountain range, and turns around with a flinch to stare at him. Tears stuck to her eyelashes.
Gaban repeats it, as though he needs to, but his tone is softer now. A caress.
“You’re beautiful.”
Kassie’s breathing stutters.
Then, in selfish indulgence, Gaban dares raise a hand and delicately, with the same care he sharpens his axes, wipes away the salt off Kassie’s cheek with thumb.
Her eyelids flutter close but she gets a hold of herself before she fully leans into the warmth of his calloused palm.
The moment is over when she inhales and glances down, effectively pulling away from his hand, and Gaban, heartbeat in his throat, takes a respectful step back yet remains uncertain about what to do next. Because Kassie is right. If a single person in the crew won’t have fun and would prefer to stay behind not to bother them, they might as well turn the ship around and find somewhere else fit for all of them, no exceptions.
He speaks softly. “Kass—”
“I,” she interrupts him, more gust of breath than a proper word, but she doesn’t continue, not until she has slowly inhaled over and over, heavily swallowed, smoothed down her dress one more time and gathered the strength to straighten her spine and square her shoulders ever so slightly. She doesn’t look at him in the eye when she speaks but her voice has regained the steadiness Gaban knows her to have. “I want to go.”
Instantly, something loosens in Gaban’s chest. He grins, smile all teeth, and offers his arm.
For a moment, Kassie stares at him, her gaze painfully tender with something Gaban can’t quite identify, before she softly smiles back and whispers, “Thank you, Gaban. Truly.”
“Nothing to thank,” Gaban replies, easier than he thought, as he leads them outside. “It’s the truth.”
Fond, Kassie shakes her head and chuckles.
Predictively, they all have some of the best hours of their lives and then the locals snitch to the Navy so they’re all soon fighting and running away, half drunk and laughing as they stumble.
❀
He’s about to go mad, seriously, he doesn’t know how much longing he can take. After months, his plan has bore no fruit and Gaban is on the verge of losing hope but he has always known the last step is to rip the bandaid off and spill his guts out. Confess.
It doesn’t make it any easier.
He plans for the best day they can have together, as if it would somehow help his cause.
Now they’ve docked at some nice autumn island, he arranged for Rayleigh to watch over Shanks, and personally invited Kassie to spend the day in town.
He dressed up, grabbed a decent amount of money and offered his arm to Kassie once again, successfully ignoring the teasing glances half the crew send his way.
Fate, indeed, has a cruel sense of humor.
He fucks everything up, there is no other expression for it.
They’ve never been on this island before so he had no previous knowledge of restaurants and stalls, so they walk for what feels like hours and hours before Kassie gets fed up with him and enters the first one they find at the turn of the corner.
He orders blindly, he’s so nervous he can’t read the menu right, and mindlessly shoves a big spoonful into his mouth because he really is hungry and maybe to calm the twist in his guts. The next thing he remembers is burning from the inside out, unwillingly coughing up and even wiping a few stray tears from his eyes at the sheer spice as Kassie asks for a glass of milk. He makes a total fool of himself but he thinks he can surely recover, wounded pride aside.
They arrive at a plaza afterwards and get some ice cream, if only because his mouth is still burning a little. As they look for a place to sit, it’s just his luck that a kid, an insultingly common kid, stumbles onto Kassie while playing tag with his friends and causes Kassie to trip and drop her cone.
Gaban offers his own, immediately, he doesn’t care about any ice cream so long as Kassie gets some, but Kassie politely turns him down, replying she’s not really fond of pistachio. The chill relief of the ice cream in his mouth means nothing when he feels guilty with every lick.
A shiver runs down his spine at the sudden scent in the air, a muttered curse escapes his lips. The sky is clear but won’t be for long.
He wanted to get them dinner, a stroll around the local market if they had it and maybe confess and kiss her at the end of it, giving her his jacket in case she was cold and taking her hand on the way back to the ship, but they’re going to have to cut the evening short because it will start pouring any minute now, such is the Grand Line.
They rush back to the Jackson but still end up soaked and for better or for worse, there’s no one on deck to witness Gaban sulking as he walks to the galley’s door, the window emitting a warm glow from inside. He really wanted to do things right, he was really going to confess but there’s no way he’s going to do it now, not when he miscalculated everything and fumbled the little he had calculated right and—
“Gaban, wait,” Kassie softly calls, gently grabbing his hand, cold skin on cold skin, and dragging him to stand under an awning, which stops the rain but not the cold creeping in. She looks up at him with worry in her dark eyes, eyes Gaban can’t tear himself from. “You’ve been off all day… what is it?”
A frustrated sigh escapes him, how does he even begin to explain what has him off?
“It’s nothing,” he replies in the end, shaking his head ever so slightly. Most importantly, however, he doesn’t step back and away. He could, the door to the galley is right there, but he’s grown to be a greedy man, a man who will take any and every crumb of Kassie's affection that comes his way, even if it’s only her worry and her presence before him.
“Don’t,” Kassie replies, her tone harder than before but it softens again, her hand squeezing his, still somehow in her grip. “Don’t shut me out like that. You can tell me… we’re friends, right?”
It’s like twisting a knife, that's what it is.
Gaban can’t help the grimace taking over his features, wiping the rain off his face and looking everywhere he can as he realizes this is Destiny laughing directly at his face while pointing at him with a finger, and eventually glancing at the floor, the lines of the wood of the ship. His voice is quiet.
“Yeah, that’s kinda the problem.”
He doesn’t see her, but he hears her gasp, the sound almost drowned out by the rain hitting the deck.
Her grip in his hand weakens as she takes a small step backwards.
And Gaban panics, if only for a second, when he wonders if Kassie thinks he doesn't want to be her friend, not that and not anything else.
“No, I mean—” He splutters, heart sinking. “I wanted to do things right, I—I wanted to take you out and have fun and I had a whole plan in my head to make this work—”
“Gaban—”
“But clearly I fucked up somewhere along the way, but it’s alright, you don’t have to—I mean, you deserve someone you like—”
“Gaban—”
“Still, it doesn’t have to mean anything, I can still be your friend if you’ll have me—”
“Gaban!”
Kassie’s not one to yell, not properly like this, so it stops his rambling immediately.
Before him, she stands with wide eyes and mouth half open in shock, panting as her lungs quickly inhale and exhale. She’s a vision, hair stuck to her face, and the rain highlighting her colors, the dark of her gaze and the dots of her freckles across the bridge of her nose and the rosy pink of her lips.
Against all odds, instead of outright rejecting him or recoiling and running away, Kassie approaches, closing almost all of the distance between them, and slowly reaches up to take his sunglasses off.
Those few inches, that tiny space, between his body and hers feel like miles and miles, an ocean’s worth, and as small as a drop at the same time. Gaban can’t breathe right in fear they touch, accidentally tangle their ribs.
Then, as though she’s the sun that will come after this pour, as the summer glow Gaban knows she is, Kassie smiles, subtly ecstatic.
“You did,” she says, a fond and excited glint in her eyes. “Do things right.”
Gaban’s world sways, tilts on its axis.
What?
Kassie continues, as if she hasn’t just shifted the foundations of Gaban’s earth.
“I was wondering—I was just waiting for when you’d tell me,” she says, suddenly hesitant. “I just—I mean, I would’ve never imposed—”
“Do not,” Gaban blurts, reaching to take his glasses off Kassie’s hand, throw them somewhere and intertwine their fingers. “Do not speak as though you are not the most wonderful and amazing person I have ever met in my life.” Then, he swallows and breathes in, multiple times, if only to gather himself. It doesn’t work. “But I—How?”
Kassie’s smile turns cheeky, as though she’s sharing an inside joke with herself. “How what?”
“The—the everything! How come I never—”
“Has anyone told you that you can try too hard?”
… No.
Looking like a lazy cat who just got the cream, Kassie steps even closer, their feet slotting together, their bodies as near as they can be without actually touching. Gaban doesn’t even think the thinnest knife could fit in there.
“I needed no reminder you’re practically carved from marble, I needed no reminder to know you are strong enough to face a thousand enemies alone,” she whispers. He shouldn’t hear above the rain, not normally, but he actually can at this distance. Her words barely register in his brain, his mind might actually be collapsing as he switches glances between her gaze and her mouth as she continues speaking. “I needed no reminder to know you are attentive, funny and kind. Nothing else to know I feel happy around you, that you make me happy.”
“Do you need a reminder to know I like you?” He blurts, because she has to know, he needs to say it and she knows needs to know he wouldn’t want anyone else in the world.
Ever so slightly, Kassie tilts her head back. “I was waiting for that one, actually.”
“Good thing I’m finally here.”
Feeling as though the blood rushing through his veins generates enough heat to steam in this weather, Gaban wastes no more time.
He loops an arm around Kassie's waist to erase the space between them, raises a hand to cup her cheek and crashes their lips together.
Firmly against him, her arms wrapped around his middle and her fingers pleasantly digging at his back, Kassie sharply inhales and then melts into the kiss. Gaban gladly bears her weight, as easily as he breathes and fights, and angles them right to devour each other whole, the tense bowstring between them finally snapping. A part of Gaban thought this would be soft but Kassie dives her tongue into his mouth and licks into him just as much as he does and Gaban, knees weak yet tightening his grip on her, decides they’ll have time for softness and worship later.
They only stop when someone bangs on the door of the galley and yells at them to get in before they catch a cold. Gaban swears he will throw Rayleigh overboard one of these days.
Either way, they obey. Eat, get dry and fail to pretend nothing has happened while throwing glances at each other across the room. However, no weak facade stops them from staying up, meeting in the middle of the night and messily kissing again on one of the galley’s couches.
❀
Never let it be said that Scopper Gaban’s plans don’t bear results, regardless of the path he took to get them and whether the plan was even necessary in the first place.