Chapter Text
There was probably something more awkward than standing around dry-eyed while other people were weeping, but in the moment Buggy couldn’t think of anything. He inched away from the Whitebeard Pirates, crying over their dead, and barked an order at the prisoners who’d been following him around—if only to give himself something to do. Whatever, they were happy to do anything he asked, and with all the dead and dying to sort through a couple dozen extra hands could only help.
Buggy scowled, crossing his arms and watching them work. So many dead, and only two anyone really cared about. Well, not that he was in any position to judge… he only cared about one of them himself, and he wished he didn’t. Concern—grief—was just a distraction, and Buggy was in no position to let himself get distracted. He was a pirate captain without his ship or his crew, on a Marine-occupied island. A sinking island, yes, but still their territory. He needed a way out, and the obvious choice was too busy being the center of attention for Buggy to ask such a sizable favor of him.
That guy with the wax powers and the very obvious number theme approached Buggy. “There you are,” he said, sounding relieved.
“There you are,” Buggy said, eyeing him up and down. He looked like he’d been through the wringer. “What happened to you?”
Three waved a hand in the air dismissively. “An uncharacteristic spell of bravery.” Sending a brief, pained look towards the half-burnt body everyone was giving a wide berth, he said, “It made no difference. I can’t imagine I’ll indulge myself like that again.”
Buggy snorted. Yeah, wasn’t that always the way? You tried to do the thing that seemed right and good, one time, and it blew up in your face.
“And what have you been up to?” Three asked, taking up a position next to Buggy, mimicking his posture.
Buggy grimaced. “Getting jerked around by Red-Hair,” he grumbled. “That ass.”
Three gave Buggy a startled look, glancing past him at Shanks, surrounded by pirates from his crew and Whitebeard’s. “Is it really wise of you to be talking like that behind an Emperor’s back?”
“Hardly behind his back, I just told him as much.”
Three’s shoulders spasmed, and he clutched at his chest. “Oh no,” he breathed, “you really will say anything to anyone, won’t you?”
“Not anyone,” Buggy scoffed. “I have some sense. But if I’ve told Shanks he’s an ass once, I’ve told him a hundred times. It’s not news.” And after hearing it a hundred times he’d clearly gotten used to it; Shanks had been totally unbothered, already moving on to the next item on his list once he confirmed that Buggy had taken care of his straw hat problem like a good little errand boy. Ooh, just thinking about it made Buggy’s blood pressure spike! How dare he!
“…right, you two were on the Pirate King’s crew together,” Three said, a calculating look in his eye. He nodded slowly. “I’ll just go ahead and make the arrangements on your behalf, then?”
Buggy grunted acknowledgement, not paying him much attention. He didn’t want to think about his old captain right now.
Three wandered off, and Buggy let his eyes drift across the slowly emptying battlefield for a few minutes. The scurrying movements of the Marines, in their blood-tinged whites, was somehow calming at this distance. Then the phrase ‘make the arrangements on your behalf’ finally sunk in, and Buggy jerked his head around to see Three sweating wax bullets and trying to talk to Shanks, who was frowning at him in polite confusion.
Damn it all.
“—hoping you would consider, ah, well…” Three was saying as Buggy raced up behind him.
Shanks spotted Buggy and his face lit up. “Buggy!” Ugh. Where did Shanks get off acting so happy to see him? “Hey, this guy—Galdino, right?—was saying he’s a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, we got real close in prison,” Buggy said dryly, nudging Three—Galdino?—to one side. He wilted gratefully; as suspected, he’d been too nervous about badmouthing an Emperor to handle having Shanks’ full attention. “Listen, Red-Hair.”
Shanks’ smile dimmed. Ugh.
“I know it’s been…” How long had it been, ten…? No, no, that time did not count. Then it had to be twenty, at least. “Twenty years since we’ve seen each other.”
“Twenty-two,” Shanks corrected instantly.
Buggy blinked. “Sure. And let me make myself clear: I would have been perfectly happy to go another twenty without seeing you. I would’ve been thrilled to never see you again.” Galdino made a small, pained sound and put his head in his hands; Buggy ignored him.
Shanks gave Buggy a knowing look. “But…?”
Buggy’s shoulders slumped. He sighed. “But,” he conceded, “I need a ride.”
Shanks gave him an easy smile. “Sure, no problem.”
Buggy held up a hand, a visual ‘not so fast.’ “And!”
“And?” Shanks raised an eyebrow expectantly.
Buggy split himself at the waist, floated up ten feet or so, and whistled. “Hey!” he called out, “how many of you guys are coming with me?”
And every man within hearing distance in one of those striped prison uniforms lifted his hands in the air and shouted, “All of us, Captain Buggy!”
Buggy dropped back down to earth, reconnecting to his legs. Looking at Shanks, he gestured to the crowd. “Them too.”
Shanks blinked. Buggy bit back a smile; it wasn’t often he managed to stun Shanks into silence. Shanks glanced at one of the men he’d been talking with when Galdino approached—gray-haired, an X of a scar on his cheek. That man grimaced, then nodded. “Okay,” Shanks said. “It’ll be a tight fit, but we should be able to pull it off.”
He was looking at Buggy in a way that made him bristle instinctively.
“What?!” he snapped.
“Nothing!” Shanks said, still smiling that stupid, fond smile. When Buggy scowled at him, Shanks just shook his head and said, “You’ve gotten popular lately, is all.”
Buggy’s scowl deepened. “Shut up.”
“No, I’m serious! It’s nice to see!” Shanks said, holding up a hand in front of himself defensively. “Long overdue, if you ask me.”
Sure. Buggy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. How long until we leave?”
The smile slipped off Shanks’ face. “If you and yours want to, you can board the Red Force now. But we’re not leaving until the dead are dealt with.”
Buggy cast Shanks a sour look. “Still such a soft heart,” he said, a note of displeasure warring with one of… ugh, sap. Shanks hadn’t changed a bit; what was wrong with Buggy that he liked that?
Shanks gave him a small, private smile. “Always.”
Buggy scoffed, and walked off. A few words of gratitude were exchanged, and Galdino came scrambling after him.
“I’d thank you for keeping me from having a meltdown in front of an Emperor—if your words to him didn’t make me melt down anyway. What is wrong with you?” Galdino demanded.
“What?” Buggy asked, digging a pinky finger around in his ear. “He said yes, didn’t he?”
“Why a man like that would let you treat him so disrespectfully…”
“That’s just how he is,” Buggy said.
“To you, maybe.”
“To everyone,” Buggy insisted. When Galdino didn’t look convinced, Buggy shook his head and said, “You’ll see.”
He didn’t get a chance, at least not right away; after his brief venture into heroism, and the subsequent harassment by the Marines, Galdino was tired enough to take one of Shanks’ junior officers up on an offer of a place to lie down, and he was out of the way and out cold when Shanks and his senior officers came back aboard.
They stood silently on the forecastle to bear witness to the mass ship burial that the sheer volume of dead had required, and then the senior officers each went their own way, all of them looking far more exhausted than the day’s events could possibly warrant. Maybe there was something to the talk Buggy had heard of just how far and how fast they’d had to travel to get to Marineford after confronting Kaidou. They’d certainly cut things pretty close, arriving when they did. Too late for—
Well, whatever the reason, the senior officers were gone, the junior officers had disappeared, and the lowest ranked crewmen were busy making room for all the other pirates coming aboard; Buggy and his fans, yes, but also Marco the Phoenix, and a number of Whitebeard Pirates, maybe half a dozen of whom Buggy recognized by appearance, if not by name.
They’d all seemed ancient, to Buggy’s teenaged eyes; now, he was almost disturbed at how little they’d changed. Nearly twenty-five years, and most of them hadn’t even altered their hairstyle. On one hand: they were aging incredibly well. On the other: what kind of pirate didn’t change up his look once in a while?! Shanks was much the same way—he’d picked up that cape, sure, but other than that his style was essentially unchanged from their childhood.
No, the things that had changed about his look, he’d had very little control over.
The source of the scar was obvious, had been obvious from the moment Buggy had first seen it. But the arm…
There were rumors, of course. Buggy hadn’t meant to listen in, the first time he came across someone speculating about what happened to Red-Haired Shanks’ left arm. But he had, that time, and the time after that, and the time after that. And most of those rumors were nonsense, he knew that without having to ask. But the fact that nobody seemed able to agree on how it had happened… that suggested Shanks wasn’t telling people.
It was rare to see Shanks keeping a secret so obviously. Buggy couldn’t deny being tempted.
And now Shanks was right there. Just sitting on a barrel, watching other members of his crew do real work. No senior officers to draw his attention away. All Buggy had to do was ask.
He couldn’t bear to ask.
He had to know.
He could not ask.
“Looking at you, I can’t tell which of the rumors is true,” Buggy said. (Not asked, technically!) Shanks glanced up at Buggy, curious. “Did you go after Whitebeard and get punished for it like that Crocodile guy, or did you try and see if your Armament Haki was stronger than a Sea King’s teeth?”
Shanks huffed out a little laugh. “Are those the only rumors circulating these days?”
“The only ones I considered remotely plausible, anyway.”
“Well, the second one’s not far off,” Shanks said.
Buggy stared. That couldn’t be the whole story. Not for him.
Shanks sighed. “Look, Buggy, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this right now. Unless you know my ship better than me, and can figure out where we’re going to put a twenty-two foot long corpse—” He cut himself off with a shake of the head. “Any other day, I would love to sit down with you and catch up. Just not today.”
Right. Buggy flushed. Shanks was an Emperor. Even if he was the youngest and weakest of them, that still required a certain something. Leadership. Responsibility. Just because he still looked like the Shanks Buggy knew, slacking off, doing as he liked, didn’t actually make him so.
“Buggy,” Shanks said, voice tight.
“Does he have to be lying down?” Buggy blurted out. Shanks blinked up at him, surprised to hear Buggy trying to be helpful. “I mean, I know how normal bodies work, death stiffness wears off eventually, but this is Whitebeard. If anyone could stay standing the whole of his death, it’s that guy.”
Shanks frowned. “I did consider that, briefly. But if we’re wrong, having to clear that much space in the time it takes him to fall over…”
Buggy cringed. “Right, that’d be way worse.” He thought about alternatives. This boat of Shanks’ was nice, but it did not have that kind of room to spare, not if he was taking shipless pirates aboard. (Which: of course he was, this was Shanks.) “What about one of the Whitebeard Fleet ships, are any of them stable enough to carry him? They’re his crews, I bet they’d be honored to be his last ride.”
Shanks nodded thoughtfully. “There are a few still seaworthy.” Running his hand through his hair, he muttered, “But like hell I’m getting involved with the intra-crew politics there. I’ll ask Marco, he’ll know which one to pick to step on the fewest toes.” Getting to his feet, Shanks visibly swayed for a moment.
“Whoa!” So it wasn’t just his officers who were exhausted. “Are you—?”
“I’m—fine,” Shanks said, pinching at his brow. He glanced at Buggy, who had foolishly reached out to, what, steady him? offer an arm to lean on? He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. Shanks sighed. “It’s not as fun as we’d thought it’d be when we were kids, is it? Being the ones in charge.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Buggy said, thinking back to that minute, fresh out of Impel Down, when anything had seemed possible with all those guys at his back, cheering him on. “It has its moments.”
Shanks gave him a considering look. He smiled. “I guess it does. Thanks for the suggestions, Buggy. Go find a spot to lie down, would you? You look like you could use some beauty sleep.”
And—okay, Buggy knew he shouldn’t say it. Even in the moment he knew it was stupid. But he could never leave well enough alone when Shanks took a cheap shot at him—especially not after the way he’d been jerked around earlier, all for the sake of that stupid hat—and that day had been on his mind. So, in response to the insult to his looks, Buggy said, “Gee, and here I thought I was gorgeous.” And because he really couldn’t help himself, it seemed, when Shanks gave him a blank look he fluttered his eyelashes and added, “With stunning eyes.”
Shanks stared.
In the time it took for Buggy to blink, he was shoved into the closest wall. He’d tear Shanks a new one for halfheartedly trying to give him a concussion, but the hand that’d pressed him shoulder-first into the wall was drifting up, up his neck, cupping his cheek, and Buggy found himself as lost for words this time as last.
Shanks leaned in. Just as he got too close for propriety, he sucked in a breath. In a whisper, he said, “That was you?”
Buggy gave him a look that said: Obviously. That said: How else would I know about it? That said: Why? Does it matter?
Did it matter? He stared up at Shanks, and, far from the first time, had no idea what he was thinking.
Shanks took a step back and laughed, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “Damn it all,” he said under his breath, “I really don’t have time for this right now.” His eyes shut, his shoulders slumped, and to Buggy it looked like he’d aged ten years in an instant. Someone out of sight called for their ‘Boss,’ and the exhaustion, the previous, unreadable emotion, it all fell away. Here was Red-Haired Shanks the Emperor, for the first time since he’d cowed the Marines into allowing the Whitebeard Pirates their dead. He stalked off, calling out, “Get some sleep, Buggy,” over one shoulder, cool as anything.
Buggy, feeling distinctly uncool and also like he’d never sleep again, scurried away in search of a private corner to panic in. He found a deck a level or two up that was deserted for the moment—crew quarters, maybe?—and huddled by the railing. Had anyone seen that? Stupid, stupid—
“Did you see that?” someone a deck below said excitedly to their companions. “Captain Buggy got that Emperor mad enough to shove him into a wall, and then without a word forced him to retreat! He’s truly amazing!”
Buggy buried his face in his hands and groaned. So stupid.
“Hey, quick question,” said someone at Buggy’s elbow some time later. It was Three—er, Galdino, whatever his name was, looking very fearful and annoyed and sweaty. (Or maybe that was the wax? Buggy didn’t know much about how his powers worked.) It seemed his rest had not been very restful. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”
Buggy gave him a dirty look. “How’s that?”
“Word among the men,” this was how Galdino had been referring to the prisoners who’d followed the two of them out of Impel Down lately, ‘the men,’ like they were Buggy’s soldiers or something, “is that Red-Haired Shanks kabedon’d you, and you turned him down. You realize he’s our only possible ride out of here at this point, right? Why would you antagonize him like that?”
Buggy’s face screwed up. Like he needed to be reminded of how beholden he was to Shanks. But also: “The hell’s that word mean?”
“Kabedon? It’s when someone shoves you into a wall to intimidate and flirt with you.”
Buggy sputtered, face hot. “Flirt with—?!” Oh fuck, was that really what they were saying? “Hell no, no way! Shanks would never—” Well. Wouldn’t he?
“I’m just reporting what I’ve heard,” Galdino said, shoving his glasses up his nose. “Oh, no one’s made the flirtatious connection but me, but they all say the two of you got up close and personal, and Red-Hair’s been red-faced ever since. I just put two and two together.”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Buggy, who couldn’t have told Galdino what it was like, since he still had no idea himself.
“No?” Galdino joined Buggy at the railing. They had a good view of the main deck from up here, including a cluster of men having a serious-looking discussion. Since the group included Shanks and Marco the Phoenix, it was probably about Whitebeard and Ace, and where they were taking their bodies and how to do it. Shanks looked tired, but it wasn’t obvious like it had been when it was just the two of them. There was something on his face that Buggy recognized from the day the news about their captain’s arrest broke. A quiet, sad kind of tired.
Feeling someone watching him, Shanks glanced up. Their eyes met for a moment, maybe two. Then Shanks turned away, face slightly, undeniably redder, rubbing his hand over his mouth.
Galdino leaned in close to Buggy’s ear. “You sure about that, Buggy?”
Blushing bright enough to rival his nose, Buggy stomped off, steaming and muttering curses against smart-mouthed wax men under his breath.
But no, he wasn’t sure at all.