Chapter Text
Fly fly fly away! Away!
Waving a hand by his ear as if he could make the wind leave him alone, the boy climbed higher up the trash heap nearest the town. It was one of the largest on that side of the island and had the best view to see over the fence. He shook his head to get his shaggy blond bangs out of his eyes to better watch the strange men he’d noticed.
Their ship landed late the night before near the rich village - well, the less poor one anyway - but they didn’t disembark until morning. The boy had made sure to get up early so he wouldn’t miss anything. It wasn’t nicknamed Scrapheap Island for nothing, and visitors of any sort were rare.
Must fly! Bad leave fly away , the wind howled at him.
He shushed it.
The matching white shirts had writing on the back - even if they weren’t too far away, his reading wasn’t good enough to understand the characters - and made it easy to pick them out despite the distance. The men walked in rows together through the streets, and instead of going towards the market, they went directly to the houses.
Humming curiously, the boy sat back in his spot and got comfortable. It was his favorite place to hang out after moving some pieces around to make something akin to a seat, and it was high enough that the air didn’t smell as bad as it did down in the thick of the heap.
It was quieter, too. Objects stopped having Voices once they’d settled into the junkpiles. Sometimes it was disconcerting, like sitting atop a graveyard, but often it was a nice break. Fresh garbage never had nice things to say.
Picking out a large, rusty, Voiceless gear to fiddle with, he spun it around his fingers, but a sharp scream startled him into dropping it.
His head shot up. He combed his fingers up through his bangs to get the full vision of all three blue eyes as he watched. The men in white were pulling women down the street, all of their bellies rounded and heavy, while others carried a couple of newborns, their mothers fighting to get to them only to be shoved away.
Instead of going back to the ship, the mothers-to-be were being taken in the direction of the clinic, but even as they got farther away, the wind carried their desperate cries all the way back to him.
“W-what are they doing?” he asked, rising to his feet while clenching his hands into fists to stop their shaking.
Find babies. Want one special one.
“Special? How can they tell?”
Don’t care. Take all babies. No chance no risk take all.
“They’re taking….all of them?” The boy bit his lip. “Do you know when the babies will come back?”
Don’t come back! Never no chance no risk fly fly away!
Red hair flashed through the boy’s mind, and he gasped, “The kid!” He threw himself down the trash pile in a chaotic mix of running and falling, ignoring the scratches on his legs from loose pieces of scrap metal scraping together as they shifted. He hit the ground and took off through the paths of the junkyard, his ratty shoes threatening to slip off while the torn sole of the left slapped against the ground with every step.
The poorest of the island lived in the shantytown amidst the endless garbage in shacks made of driftwood and sheet metal. There were a few of the elders sitting outside their homes smoking and drinking, and they sneered at the boy as he ran past. Self-consciously he shook his bangs back into place to hide his eyes.
Finally he stopped outside one of the shacks and grimaced. Leaning against the open doorway - none of the homes had actual doors or else they got too hot inside during the day - in his finest threadbare coveralls was Uncle.
“Th’ fuck ya doin’ here, freak?” the older man rasped, taking a long drag of his cigarette and blowing the smoke in the boy’s face.
It is very important to note that Uncle was in fact not the boy’s actual uncle. He and Auntie just happened to live nearby when the boy showed up in the dump as a baby, and she insisted they take care of him. Take care is perhaps an exaggeration, but they prevented him from dying so good enough.
“I’m here to check on the kid,” he said and tried to walk right in only for Uncle to stretch his leg out to block his way.
“They’re both asleep.”
Looking up to level a glare at the smirking man, the boy pushed at the leg only to be shoved to the ground, landing on his ass with a grunt. Gritting his teeth, he curled his fingers to grab a handful of dirt, and as he stood up, he threw it into Uncle’s face.
The boy darted inside as Uncle shouted and rubbed at his eyes, but he only made his halfway across the single roomed shack before fingers snagged his hair and forced him down. A weight settled on top of him, and his heart raced when, “You’ll pay for that, brat,” was growled in his ear.
He struggled to move only for the hand tangled in his hair to shove his face painfully into the dirt. Tears of frustration - and a small amount of fear - pooled in his eyes until he noticed a dark beer bottle tipped over and dripping on the floor nearby. He reached out and could hear its solemn Voice silently encouraging him.
Uncle released the boy’s head only to slam a hand down on his wrist.
“You ain’t tryin’ to escape your punishment, are ya?” The burning end of Uncle’s cigarette pressed against the back of the boy’s hand drawing a sharp cry as he fought to get away. “Or maybe I’ll do ya a favor and finally get rid of that thrice damned eye.”
Head painfully yanked back by his hair, the boy stared wide-eyed at the cigarette held before him in terror.
He curled his head down as much as possible, eyes instinctively squeezing shut, until he felt it. Uncle leaned closer, and the earth bellowed, Smash your head back!
And the boy did.
He heard a loud crack and a shout, and Uncle flinched back enough to give the boy enough room to lunge forward and grab the bottle. Grasping the neck right, he swung around and smashed it into the side of Uncle‘s head just as the older man was regaining his bearings.
Uncle collapsed to the side.
Sitting up, the boy shook as he white knuckled the remains of the shattered bottle, fearfully watching the body with wide eyes for any sign of movement. Everything seemed fine until he saw an eyebrow twitch and without thinking, the boy jabbed the jagged edge of the neck into Uncle’s throat.
Blood pooled beneath them as he twisted and shoved the glass deeper. Uncle’s hands weakly tried to push him away, but his face had already grown pale and it didn’t take long before he finally went limp.
Breathing heavily, the boy sat back. Streaks of blood cut across his hands, and he quickly wiped them as clean as he could on his pants. Rising on unsteady legs, he glanced over to the lumpy mattress where Auntie was dead asleep surrounded by more bottles that were quietly murmuring her woes.
Unsurprisingly, her face was bruised and the front of the nightdress she wore was crusted from throwing up on herself. The boy shook his head. She hadn’t always been so……well, not according to the other neighbors anyway.
Apparently the abuse and alcoholism started after she’d insisted on taking him in, and it continued to escalate in the following years.
Would she try to stop him? Unlikely.
Still, the boy searched Uncle‘s corpse for the small knife he always kept on him. It was a fairly small, rusted thing - more of a metal shard with a taped up handle - but it felt big in his young hands. Auntie didn’t move as he approached, and there was only a short gasp when he inexpertly slashed her throat open. Just in case.
The sudden spray of blood from the wound caught the boy off guard, and his breath hitched as it splattered across his neck and cheek. Uncomfortably warm and slick against his skin, the sensation froze him. Raising a hand to his jaw, it came back red and trembling.
Gulping down a wave of dizziness, he moved in a haze, wiping the blade clean on the hem of her dress and hanging it off his belt, pushing through each step with deliberate slowness, just as soft cries began to sound from the back corner. His head shot up, and he rapidly blinked as clarity cut through the horror.
The baby’s Voice was anxious, showing an unconscious sense of his surroundings as he fidgeted within his crib. Rushing over, the boy lifted the kid out without another second thought about the blood and ruffled a finger through the tuft of red hair on his head. The cries slowly faded as the boy held him close.
When the boy had been kicked out of their home a year prior when he was only four years old, it was because of the baby being born. There wasn’t enough space and certainly not enough food for both, so the boy had to leave and take care of himself.
But he didn’t blame the kid for that.
A lot of babies didn’t make it in the junkyard - too much disease or too little food - so most parents didn’t bother naming them until a year or two after they’re born. Even at five years old, the boy never got his real name, but the kid deserved one because he would survive.
“I’ve got you, Kid” he whispered, lightly bouncing the baby in his arms. It’s what he’d always called him, so it felt less confusing to just make it his official name. Kid babbled nonsense, but the boy could hear in his Voice that he was happy to see him. Confirming that he was okay was an incredible relief, and the boy gently smiled down at the baby.
Knowing Uncle and Auntie’s parenting techniques as he did, he’d often sneak by to help - usually when they were gone or asleep - so Kid knew him and took comfort in his presence.
Keeping him pressed close to his chest so he wouldn’t see his parents’ bodies, the boy carefully stepped around Uncle and carried Kid right outside. They were able to run all the way to the boy’s tiny metal lean-to without incident, and he released a sigh of relief. Even if it wasn’t the most caring of shantytowns, a blood covered child holding a baby tended to draw questions.
A bucket half-full of rainwater let him wash most of Auntie’s blood off his face after laying Kid down on top of his single, thin blanket. There wasn’t anything he needed - or even had - to gather, but as he gathered up the baby, blanket and all, he started to fuss. His Voice was hungry, and the boy frowned.
Feeling guilty, he soaked a corner of the blanket in the rainwater and held it up to the baby’s mouth who grumbled unhappily.
“I know it’s not what you want,” the boy said, “but it’s all we’ve got right now.” The tightness in his chest released when Kid started sucking on the wet fabric. It gave the boy a moment to think and decide what to do next. He had to hide the baby before any of those men showed up in the garbage dump.
There were parts of the island he’d never been to, so maybe he could find somewhere out there to hide until the danger left. The wind would be happy to tell him when the men were gone, but—
The boy looked at the baby. Looking after him in the wild wouldn’t be easy. As he watched the baby suckle what meager drops of water he could, the worry grew with the realization that he had no idea what to do to keep them both safe.
A sharp rap to the overhang of his lean-to startled a yelp out of the boy, and he quickly grabbed the knife, balancing Kid in one arm and clutching him tightly. Unsteady footsteps came around until he saw familiar bony legs, and he grinned.
“Old Lady Eustass!” He crawled out to stand by her. Old Lady Eustass was the oldest person in the village, probably the whole world judging by how decrepit she looked. Little more than wrinkly skin and knobby bones with gray hair so wispy it looked like spider webs. Her patchwork dress fell to her knees with a ratty sack hanging off her arm, and she leaned heavily on a makeshift cane.
The boy believed she was an evil witch who’d already died once and used black magic to come back from the dead because she wasn’t done cursing people.
She boxed his ears when he’d told her that.
“I heard you’d been runnin’ around with a babe,” she said. Her voice was rough and airy, sounding as if she was breathing her words instead of actually speaking them.
Narrowing his eyes, the boy growled, "What of it?"
"Figured you'd go after the little one once you realized." She peered at the children with a knowing look, scoffing at the boy's surprise. "Think you were the only one to notice them?"
"Well—" he started, but Old Lady Eustass lightly rapped the side of his leg with her cane.
"Children always think they're the smart ones," she chided. "I might not hear as well as you do, but we'd already heard what those soldiers are up to."
The boy ducked his head. The old hag was one of the only people aware that he heard things other people couldn't, actually, she was the only one now that Auntie and Uncle were dead, but they never believed him anyway.
She turned her head to the sky and hummed. "Word all around the South Blue is that they're lookin' for a babe," from the corner of her eye, she looked at the baby in his arms, "and they ain't bein' too picky ‘bout how many they go through."
“They can’t have him!” he snapped, baring his teeth while her gapped smile grinned back at him.
“Oh no?” she cackled, hunching over as her shoulders shook, "And how do you plan to stop them?"
He brandished the knife in front of him, white-knuckling the handle until the edges dug into his palm, and repeated in a hiss, “They can’t have him.”
Old Lady Eustass flicked his forehead and pointed a long, blackened nail at him. “Stupid child! You plan to cut through every Marine you see?”
“What else am I supposed to do?” he demanded. His throat felt raw and lent a roughness to his words, and there was a burning behind his eyes from a sense of helplessness. He squeezed Kid tighter, faintly wishing that was enough to protect him, and only loosened his hold when Kid loudly complained.
"If I were you, I'd try the docks on the east side of the island."
The boy started and gaped at the old woman who wore a mischievous smile. She removed the old bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Wha—”
“Just might make it if you run.”
Confusion stilled the boy’s feet as he stared blankly at her.
As he did nothing, her lips turned down, and she pulled back her cane, swinging it at him and snapping, “I said run, brat!” While carrying his load, the boy barely avoided getting his head whapped, but it got his body moving again.
Running past her, he called back, “Thanks, old hag!” before turning all his attention to putting one foot in front of the other. There was no way of knowing what awaited them at the docks - and apparently no time to ask questions - but he’d take the chance given.
No doubt it was a risk, but—
—he trusted Old Lady Eustass. She had always been nice to him.
Even after getting outside the village, the coastline was dotted with scrap that the boy did his best to avoid as he ran. He kept both arms wrapped around Kid, but one hand still kept the knife ready.
The docks were farther than expected, but by the time they reached them, there was still a boat tied off while two others were already floating offshore. He couldn’t see anyone around until he reached the dock. As soon as the boy reached the gangplank, a bearded man stormed out from below deck wielding a harpoon.
His angry expression faltered when he saw nothing but a young boy carrying a baby. He lowered the weapon, but the boy flinched back at the movement and pointed his knife forward. Shaggy hair shifted and the man could see three eyes glaring at him.
“The hell are you?” the man gruffed, forehead wrinkling.
The boy adjusted his grip, looked at his blade then back up at the man. “I’m a killer,” he warned.
Not bothering to hide his snort of derision, the man nonetheless stood aside and gestured them onboard.
“Alright, get your brother up here, little killer. You can go down with the rest of them.” He led the boy over to the hatch.
Killer hesitated, taking a moment to nuzzle Kid’s hair and remind himself to trust Old Lady Eustass, before steeling himself and taking them into the underbelly of the ship. Instead of cargo, the space was full of women in various stages of pregnancy or holding their babies protectively.
There was an empty spot along one of the walls, and he stepped around several pairs of legs to claim it. The rock of the ship was strange and felt stronger once he was sitting below. He sat cross legged and was finally able to let Kid down, cradling him against his stomach and letting his arms rest.
Kid babbled and grabbed at his shirt. The babe started to fuss but wasn’t calmed down by Killer rubbing circles on his back.ship
“He’s hungry,” the woman next to him said. Her belly was swollen and looked a lot like Auntie’s did right before she gave birth.
“I know that,” Killer told her, and he did know. Could hear it in Kid’s Voice, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Give him here.” She held out her arms to take Kid, and when Killer eyed her warily, she smiled softly with an understanding look on her face. “I can feed him.”
Making sure she saw the knife he carried first, Killer allowed her to rest Kid in the top swell of her stomach. She unlaced the top of her blouse, and when Kid latched onto her breast, Killer let out a breath of relief he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
Content to let Kid gurgle happily as he fed, the woman holding on to him carefully, Killer took off the dark sack Old Lady Eustass gave him and looked inside.
It was the weirdest fruit he’d ever seen, like a rusty orange melon with intricate black swirls covering the skin, and it kept whispering Jiki Jiki to him. Holding it up to his nose, it didn’t smell weird.
He glanced at Kid thoughtfully and put the fruit back in the bag. It was his responsibility to make sure Kid got to eat first.
He’d keep Kid safe. That was a promise.