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Chapter Text

The bar's in ruins, civilians are screaming, Mihawk's taken at least five heads and Shanks can't find Buggy.

Shanks gives Buggy a lot of shit, partly because he deserves it, mostly because it's Shanks' right as the older brother. It doesn't mean he doesn't have faith in Buggy's ability to keep himself alive. But Shanks is also the greatest haki user of his generation and where there should be a bouncing ball of blue energy cracking with red anxiety make Captain proud, make Rayleigh proud and don't let them see you panic, there has to be a way out, where there should be this is going to suck or at worst I refuse to survive Skypeia and the entire goddamn grand line, Impel Down and fucking Marineford to go out like this, where there should be anger sharpening adrenaline into a tool, a blade or a lockpick, instead…

There's nothing.

Buggy's always been flashy, every last one of Roger's crew shone as bright as a full moon, but now all Shanks hears is battle and all he sees is dust, is blood, collapsed walls and singing useless bullets. There's Mihawk's black-and-gold boredom and Benn's burnished silver shotgun and no firework-boom blue misdirect, no red spark to strike Shanks' own winesoaked tinder. There's strangling fear curling around the base of his throat like the string of a hat he hasn't worn in a very long time, a garrotte of the only charge Roger ever laid on his shoulders look out for your brother pulled tight by the hand Rayleigh would run over his face when Buggy got too close to the water. Usually Shanks' command of haki is tripwire tight but usually Buggy doesn't just disappear off the face of the planet and it lashes out like a snapped fiddle string sharp enough to lay someone open to the bone, where are you where is he wheRE IS MY BROTHER?

Everyone freezes, drops, Mihawk first (he's shit when it comes to resisting the command of a king, always has been, always will be,) but everyone in the field after him, and even Benn kneels when he has been at Shanks' side longer than he hasn't.

(It's always strongest for a brother.)

And only in the silence does Shanks feel it for the first time in an era, the almost-unfamiliar icewater trickle of Buggy folding in on himself, trying to hide. Fallen masonry, and Benn shaking off the command enough to help him move it and there's no way a grown man can fit in there but Benn leverages the last fragment of wall up and underneath is the worst thing Shanks has ever seen, worse than Firefist with a hole through his chest (because he wasn't a brother, not really,) worse than Roger's head rolling back (because he was done and he'd chosen it and all the choices had sucked but at least Roger had one).

There's so much blood, and Buggy's so tiny and there's a severed hand next to him - not his, he still has two impossibly small ones clamped over his ears, a larger severed head next to it and Shanks does not care, Buggy is trying to scoot away from it but his feet are wrong, somehow, in a way Shanks' eyes refuse to comprehend but it's more than the suddenly too-big shoes, the too-big clothes and there's just so much blood Shanks slips in it, his knees hitting the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth.

Roger could braid the Voice of all things and his haki around the beat of your heart, rock gentle as a berth when the ship was sailing full under the hands of the night crew, but if that could be taught Buggy himself was the one to learn, so Shanks has to make do with Rayleigh's poker face and an outstretched hand and a broken prayer falling from his lips.

"Shanks," Buggy whispers, meeting his eyes, "Shanks, what the fuck."

And then he's moving, or trying to, pushing himself across the goresoaked floorboards while Shanks tries to sort it out but Buggy is six(?) years old and Shanks can't, he can't.

Thank God for Benn Beckman.

Before Buggy remembers how to scream or Shanks how to stand up, Benn has his cape flung around Buggy, shoves him into Mihawk's arms. Mihawk's looking shocky but nobody else is moving so once Shanks has managed to get his legs working he's striding with Benn covering him, Shanks stumbling between them trying to breathe, reaching for Buggy but his fingers slip every time he trips over his own feet.

Lucky's yelling orders as soon as the Red Force is in earshot, Yasopp comes out with a squad to cover them the rest of the way and Shanks trusts them to get it done because his entire world has narrowed down to hitched noises coming from the bundle in Mihawk's arms, the click of Mihawk's boots against the wood, the dripping.

The medbay's seen nothing but hangovers and hangnails in so long, Mihawk doesn't even know where it is, but he does know how to take orders when he has to, when Hongo directs him to lay Buggy down on the table, gives Mihawk something to do Shanks can't hear over the terrible silence in his ears, can't tear his gaze from Buggy's face suddenly round and bare and so very very white.

It's dark in here, safe in the belly of the beast, until Benn lights the lamp with his cigarette, forces it into Shanks' hand and the light bounces off Buggy's eyes, wide and terrified silver.

Silver eyes to see the wind, Rayleigh used to say a lifetime ago, pulling a hairbrush through saltsticky blue tangles, and Shanks hasn't thought about that in ages but it's all he can think about now, a fragment of something long forgotten echoing around his head.

Silver eyes to see the wind, and a line before and something about gold after, and Buggy's saying, "I want Rayleigh," and it smells almost like rum but Shanks can't tell what liquor exactly and fuck Shanks wants Rayleigh too, wants to crawl inside his whiskey-soaked coat and wake up from this nightmare but all he gets is Mihawk's fingers steady over the lamp and he's so infuriatingly calm.

"Call Marco," Mihawk says. "Trafalgar may be closer, though you'll have to ask Marco or Zoro for his frequency." (Who the fuck is Zoro.) "When you call the Sunny, ask Chopper for help." The Thousand Sunny, ship of the Strawhat Pirates. Tony Tony Chopper, ship pet. Roronoa Zoro, first mate.

"Chopper has been keeping them alive." Mihawk's free hand settles on Buggy's face, his thumb stroking over his eyebrow. "Yasopp does have their frequency, yes?"

Shanks stares blankly at him. He can't help it, can't draw the connection between Yasopp and the Strawhats, and Luffy. "Chief," Hongo says, and that snaps his full attention. "Maybe the whiz kid can save his feet, but I can't. Go make the call."

Shanks does not make the calls.

He delegates to Limejuice and then he slides against the wall with a bottle of wine, but years of training backfire on him and it doesn't even take the edge off by the time Limejuice reports back. Marco can leave in ten minutes but they need a destination. Chopper will call back when he's done with his marimo jigsaw puzzle, but he did give them the frequency for Trafalgar's ship, which is out of range. Also Teech's pirates are still trying to sink them, but Yasopp's squad has almost completely repelled them.

Lucky comes down, half a bottle later, hands him a plate of food and reports that Teech isn't coming after them anytime soon, and nobody needs Hongo. He asks Shanks what's going on, but all he gets is Shanks shaking his head, saying, "Grandline bullshit."

After a minute, Shanks manages to dredge up, "There's a kid that got hurt, bad. We're gonna take care of him, quietly."

Lucky presses his lips together but all he says is, "What I don't know can't be tortured out of me?"

Shanks nods. He trusts Lucky Roux, he'd trust his whole crew to keep a secret no matter how they were put to the question, but he doesn't trust his own tongue right now so that's as good an excuse as any. Instead he says, "Kid'll need some clothes. Small ones. We got any?"

Lucky leverages himself up with his hands on his knees, says, "We can do that," and Shanks knows his crew has his back. They don't need to say it. There are things Shanks should be doing that Lucky is walking away to do, that Limejuice and Yasopp, that the rest of them are doing, so Shanks doesn't worry about any of them, trusts them, and sits. Alone.

If it was anyone else, -Benn or Mihawk, Luffy or Gaban, anyone- Shanks would be able to stop shaking but it's Buggy and Buggy was supposed to be safe he was a yonko with Mihawk on one side and Crocodile on the other and the entire Cross Guild behind him.

It's not long at all before the door behind him opens and Mihawk comes out, Hongo's voice following him. "Get him cleaned up, see if you can get something warm in him. I'll catch you up after I get this put away."

Shanks reaches for the borrowed coat he keeps in the back of his mind, wraps it around himself like Rayleigh used to, follows Mihawk to where they keep the bathwater. Warm still, from washing up after the skirmish, but empty.

"Why're you old," Buggy asks, slippery against Shanks' shirt as Mihawk washes blood and dirt off him, careful around the bandages hiding his legs, wrapped around his chest over some injury Shanks completely missed.

But he's talking and recognizes Shanks at least, and that makes it easier for Shanks to unstick enough to answer his questions, to hold him up when he lists too far to the side. "You're young," Shanks replies. "Grandline bullshit."

Buggy's so quiet and his breath is coming so hard and he says, "This isn't the Jackson."

"No, it's my ship." Shanks doesn't say anything else. Does he need to tell him what happened? How can he explain when he doesn't understand?

"I want Captain." Buggy's eyes are full of tears and he's scared and Shanks can't do anything because he's terrified himself. "Shanks, I want Captain, Rayleigh, I wanna go home."

"They're. Far away," Shanks settles on saying. Rayleigh is back on Sabaody. The Jackson's at the bottom of the ocean. Who knows where Buggy counts as home anymore. "It'll be okay, Bug, I promise," and Buggy's face is screwing up and Shanks would welcome shrieking but then Buggy's head droops alarmingly and he can see the tendons in his neck, the massive effort to lift it back up. "I'll take care of you, all right?"

Buggy doesn't respond right away, but when Mihawk takes his chin in his hand, starts wiping his cheeks, Buggy asks him, "Who're you?"

"You are a yonko, one of the four most powerful pirates alive," Mihawk says, impossibly calm, and it makes it easier for Shanks to hang onto his own composure even as he resents him a little for it. "And I am your right hand. I am the World's Greatest Swordsman, and I swore an oath to keep you safe."

He's a filthy fucking liar is what Mihawk is, and they will talk about this later.

"What's y'r name," Buggy slurs, suspicious and so light.

"You can call me Mihawk," is all he says, wrapping a towel around Buggy, adding, "No walking," when he lifts Buggy off Shanks' lap. It's not fair but Shanks can't carry Buggy one-handed, not without putting pressure on his bandages, not when Buggy can barely hold up his own head let alone keep his whole weight from slipping.

"Put him in my berth," Shanks says. It's only practical and. When they were small, like Buggy is now, when they were sick or hurt, they always slept in the captain's bunk, on the Jackson right next to the medbay. Rayleigh's was for nightmares and Gaban's was for when Captain or Rayleigh had nightmares and Oden's was for winter islands and parties too long in the night but Buggy's too young to know him.

Shanks could kiss every member of his crew when he opens his cabin door and finds hot soup steaming gently on his desk, his berth made up with clean fresh sheets, the smallest clothes they had on board folded neatly at the foot.

Mihawk gets Buggy into the clothes easy for a guy who Shanks has never actually seen in the vicinity of a child before today. Shanks isn't questioning it any more than he questions how little fight is in Buggy when the kid leans against his chest and lets Mihawk feed him.

(He's a kid, fuck.)

Shanks talks through the whole meal, barely hearing himself as he tells Buggy that they're both yonkos, equals, and that means they're free and safe. Marco's in charge of the Whitebeards now, he's old like Shanks but his hair is stupid as ever.

Buggy's tiny and cold but Shanks can at least keep him calm while Mihawk pours soup into him, interjecting occasionally with his dry wit. He tells Buggy that Rayleigh quit pirating and married Shakky.

Buggy is absolutely unsurprised because —Shanks did not know Mihawk didn't know this- Rayleigh has been threatening that since forever.

"Captain musta pissed him off real bad," Buggy says around a yawn as Hongo comes in, sleeves still rolled up but hands clean, followed by Benn.

"Keep them elevated, best you can," Hongo says as they post up at the door while Mihawk rearranges pillows and Shanks is a pillow, a useless decorative one watching Mihawk tuck Buggy in, watching his own hand wipe stray drops of soup off Buggy's face, Buggy's head cradled against his knee so tiny, so pale.

Only when Buggy's dropped off and Mihawk silently moves away to tidy up does Hongo come closer. Benn held the light when Shanks sewed up the horrible second mouth Luffy sliced into his own face and Benn's belt was what Shanks bit down on when they cleaned up what was left of his arm and Benn's face now is stoneset sober cracked with grief as he closes the door.

(And he doesn't even like Buggy, like once Roger came back from Laughtale some god took a marker and divided the world into three, people who like Buggy and people who like Shanks and people who saw the end of the world.)

"You don't even like him," Shanks says to Benn but also to Mihawk, who leans back in Shanks' chair, boots up on the desk, and shrugs.

"Shanks. We're not a proper hospital," Benn says, lighting a cigarette. "I don't even know where the closest one is."

Benn knows everything.

"Someone tried to take his head," Hongo begins. "That alone, he's lost so much blood, it's a miracle he made it back here. We don't exactly keep any on hand."

"F-type," Shanks remembers, more for the childish bickering when Crocus told them that Shanks and Rayleigh's blood was the same but Captain's was different and Buggy's was different even than his.

"I will not let him fall to another's blade," Mihawk says to the ceiling. Some people find him inscrutable. Mysterious. Shanks knows better. Mihawk is just stretching out the cricks in his spine.

"And the feet, Chief, you're not processing anything I'm saying, are you?"

Shanks gives Hongo his most disarming smile. "Not a damn thing."

Benn turns to Mihawk. "And you are a caveman who doesn't even know what hyperkalemia means."

Mihawk sits up, pins Benn with his golden stare. "Masssive injury is not easy on the body. One's heart may give out from the strain. It is not as simple as going home once the bleeding has stopped."

Then he crosses his arms behind his head, returns his gaze to the ceiling. "You did your best, I'm sure," he drawls. "It is up to his will now."

Benn sighs, as most people do when they realize that yes, Mihawk is an idiot.

Hongo leans forward and touches Buggy's neck, his lips moving as he counts out heartbeats. "If he's asleep he's not in pain," he says after a while. "We'll take care of everything else. You take care of him."

"Call the Sunny again," Mihawk says, insistent on that point. "They should be closer than Marco. Tell whoever answers that a child needs help."

Benn looks at Shanks and Shanks does trust Mihawk so he shrugs. "Can't hurt."

Benn keeps looking at him for a long minute, then turns to Mihawk. "Don't leave them alone," he orders before leaving, Hongo trailing after him.

Only once the door clicks, loud in the silence, does Mihawk rise to take Hongo's spot on the bed. "When a man prone to severe injury lives in my house for two years, it is impossible not to pick up a few things."

"Roronoa?" Shanks hazards. For all his complaints about his houseguests, Mihawk hadn't mentioned any injury save the eye. He does not try to find Buggy's heartbeat. He does not know what it is supposed to feel like. He knows what Buggy's bones are supposed to feel like and it is not this birdhollow uncushioned sharpness.

Mihawk nods. "Dehydrated, he becomes quite… chatty. Tony Tony Chopper is not their pet, he is their doctor and a damn fine one if he's kept them alive this long, let alone fighting fit."

Shanks would prefer Marco, all things considered, and Hongo is no slouch but he hasn't had much practice lately, and he won't turn down a second set of eyes or hands.

"Their shipwright, too, has extensive experience with major trauma," Mihawk continues. "Apparently he had to build his own prostheses after attempting to stop a sea train. Have you seen that beast?"

"Their shipwright is Tom's kid?" Shanks remembers Tom's two sons, adopted just like Shanks and Buggy. Exactly like Shanks and Buggy. He remembers bonding with Iceburg over obnoxious blue-haired little brothers who were so smart with books and so dumb with everything else. He remembers drinking with Iceburg, after. "He's not dead?"

"Legally, he is." Mihawk does not elaborate. Shanks tries to picture it, Roronoa homesick enough to spill his guts across a damp castle floor, Mihawk listening patiently with a glass of wine. He can't see it, mostly because he's never actually met Roronoa. Mihawk has vast reservoirs of patience, when he cares enough about someone. Apparently Roronoa has earned a spot on that short list.

They sit in silence, an hour or more, Shanks turning the facts over and over in his head, wearing the sharp edges down until they don't draw blood anymore. Buggy is a child, is small and helpless and hurt. Shanks has to take care of him somehow. Some things cannot be changed. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the tide rises and falls, and even if your little brother is a yonko you take care of him. Even when he can take care of himself, even when he is an asshole, even when you've just had your daughter's wedding ruined, you show up for your little brother.

"He's not your brother," Shanks says finally, when he's sliced himself on this is my brother and he has nobody else so many times it doesn't hurt anymore. "You don't even like him."

"There are multiple fruits that can change the flow of time, reverse it even," Mihawk says. Between them, Buggy's breath is heavy, slow, hitching like a nightmare. Rayleigh's bunk was for nightmares. Shanks wishes he was in Rayleigh's bunk, waking from this nightmare. "He looked at you without recognition. He forgot me." Mihawk's voice is steady, calm in that infuriating way of his. "This is not the Buggy I have worked with for months and known for years. This is a child with an unfortunate resemblance."

"A child you have no obligation to," Shanks says, because any conversation is better than listening for the next stutterstep inhale.

"I did promise, earlier." How easy it comes to Mihawk, to say this child is not Buggy when the child is, in fact, Shanks' little brother stripped of whatever strength he had and left without their crew to protect them, only Shanks who couldn't keep him safe for a full minute.

Shanks likes to pretend Mihawk is too stupid to understand what's going on. But in the flicker of the lantern, Mihawk is gazing down unbearable soft, and when Buggy stirs, moans, it's Mihawk's hand on his round cheek first.

Mihawk knows. He's just better at setting it aside.

"Hurts," Buggy mumbles, reaching up, but Mihawk's hand slides down to rest light on his chest.

"It'll hurt more if you sit up," he says, tapping his fingers over the bandages.

"Go back to sleep, Bug," Shanks suggests, because sleep is healing and sleep doesn't hurt, and if Buggy is asleep Shanks doesn't have to hold himself together.

"Don' wanna." Buggy's head rolls towards Shanks. "Where's cap'n?"

"Not here, remember?" There are tears leaking out of the corners of Buggy's eyes, tiny baby things that seem too silent to be coming from him and Shanks' left hand burns to wipe them away.

"You're old, Shanks, when did you get old, I don’ like this," Buggy mumbles, half asleep despite his protests. "I want cap'n." His eyes stay stubbornly open, cloudy and tearfilled and rolling lazily across Shanks' face. "'M scared."

"I know, I know," Shanks says as Mihawk stands and leaves Shanks' line of sight and ceases to exist. Nothing matters but the sweatdark hair pressed against Buggy's cheek, the trembling fist clutching his empty sleeve.

They always skip this part in the stories, Shanks learned the first time he sat vigil at Buggy's side. Three days, they say, all night. They find two words that cover the time because there's no describing it.

The hours of mind-numbing terror, measured in the pauses between breaths, a thousand or more but only the next one counts, the endless frozen limbo. The trickle-spill of water down his wrist when Shanks holds Buggy's head while Mihawk feeds him small sips of water alternating with whatever medicine Hongo scrounged up, painkillers hopefully, antibiotics if they're lucky, who knows what else.

Oden used to have a necklace of a hundred and nine beads to count his prayers, but Oden isn't here now and Shanks doesn't know how to pray through the night. He wishes he did, wishes he believed it would help.

His only comfort is his crew, running along without him. He can hear Lucky outside the door sometimes, the familiar roundness of his vowels as he runs interference, crisping up when Hongo comes by to check the amount of soup and water and medicine they've gotten into Buggy.

Shanks does not dream, would not know he slept if not for the sudden sharp sunlight-change when Benn opens the porthole shutter. Hongo is halfway through the door, ignoring everyone and everything to check on Buggy, and Lucky behind him with breakfast. Mihawk rises abruptly and leaves the room when Hongo reaches Buggy, and when he starts undoing bandages Shanks wishes he could follow.

But his empty sleeve is still knotted around Buggy's tiny fist and Shanks is trapped pinned crushed under it.

Benn is saying something but all Shanks can hear is the wet rustle of bloodsoaked bandages as Hongo uncovers the damage, and it's a kaleidoscope of pinkred and white bone, falling apart as soon as the pressure isn't holding it together, ironbright taste in his mouth and the silver flash of a scalpel and Shanks squeezes his eyes shut, swallows down the urge to vomit. Tries desperately to remember the smell of Crocus' medbay.

"It's done, chief," Benn says an eternity later. "You ready to listen?"

Shanks opens his eyes, and Buggy's legs are safely hidden under a blanket, the bandages around his chest under a too-big shirt smallest onboard. Buggy's eyes are glassy but open, breathing labored but breathing.

"Keep pushing fluids," Hongo says. "Marco's meeting us on Sepultura. My supplies should hold out that long. I'll measure out the doses so you and Mihawk just have to administer them."

Buggy is warm under his hand, hot, feverish. "How many days until Sepultura?"

Hongo shrugs. Lucky forces a cup of coffee on the doctor and tells him to tell Mihawk it's safe to come back.

"Too many," Benn says, once the door closes behind Hongo. "We'll figure it out."

Shanks should say something about how he trusts his crew to work miracles, how grateful for them he is. He should.

Benn Beckman is the smartest man on the four seas, can read Shanks' face so well he can practically read his mind. "I know, chief," he says. "I'll tell them. You just keep him with us."

And Shanks doesn't feel better but he doesn't feel worse.

(Benn's one of the few people who get what it means to have a little brother.)

Lucky makes Benn eat, makes Shanks eat. Nothing rattles Lucky, and Shanks wants to borrow that simple faith but he doesn't have a hand to hold out. There's a bowl for Buggy, of course, for the next time he wakes -he dropped off while Shanks was eating, plate balanced on Buggy's head and Buggy's complaints about how he's not a table continuing for some time after he fell asleep. They stay until Mihawk returns, nodding to him as Lucky leaves to do the dishes and Benn to run the ship.

Mihawk was gone longer than Shanks expected, if he was just avoiding Hongo. "I called Crocodile to update him on the situation," he says, peeling an apple with his tiny sword. "He had some interesting news. Blackbeard's crew is claiming to have killed Buggy, but someone's calling their bluff."

Shanks stares blankly at Mihawk's fingers. "One of your Cross Guild?"

"Silvers Rayleigh." Mihawk's bladework is impeccable in all circumstances and the peel is even, one long spiral. Shanks should reply.

But all he can think of is the time Rayleigh tucked them safe in a dinghy, hid them under oilcloth, left them to drift in the storm tethered by a single rope to the Jackson until the rest of them could repel the boarders. There was something special about the other crew, especially foul, he can't quite remember why they had a particular affinity for cabin boys. He can only remember the crack in Rayleigh's voice, count on one hand the number of times he heard it, when he said hold your brother tight.

The waves had been high, the sea rough, they'd been so cold when Roger lifted them out of the dinghy hours later, but he'd held tight and Buggy had been safe.

It comes back to that, it always comes back to that, how is he going to say he failed at the most important job? How is he going to face Rayleigh's disappointment, face his Captain one day and explain to him what happened?

Shanks is going to have to live forever, just so he never has to see the sorrow his failure surely planted in Roger's eyes.

His thoughts circle like seabirds, from Rayleigh's sigh to the banality of waiting to every new observation of just how fragile Buggy is now. Kids are resilient they say, kids are tough, and cabin boys more than most but there's a limit. Hongo keeps telling Mihawk not to leave Shanks alone as he wanders in for hourly checks and Shanks refuses to look directly at that.

Nobody tries to call him away for food or washing up or anything, just the opposite. Benn has decided, in his wisdom, to keep Shanks at Buggy's side as long as he can, and Shanks refuses to look directly at that as well.

Buggy does stir occasionally, begs for water and his captain and relief, sweaty-swearing he's cold before dropping back into unconsciousness and Shanks tries to memorize the slope of his eyebrow, the shade of his nose. Tells himself it's because he didn't do it before, he needs to do it now before they reverse everything, turn this sweet child back into a bitter man.

Hongo is pleased that Buggy is so delirious and limp. "It means he's healing," he says even as he marks with black ink the advancing front of angry red infected veins on Buggy's thigh, his shoulder. "When his body decides it's more important for him to say goodbye, that's the worry."

Benn is less pleased, several endless minutes hours days later, when he comes to report what's come in about the devil fruit that put them in this position in the first place. The man who had eaten it, the only known hope of reversing it, was found back in the rubble with his head and hands neatly severed from his body.

"How unfortunate," Mihawk notes.

Benn shakes his head and goes back to directing them to make all speed to Marco, to Sepultura, a race they’re determined to win even as Buggy's fever climbed higher, as the red lines under his skin and black ones over rushed ever closer to his heart. The worst week of Shanks' life, and that has some stiff competition, some of it it even not involving Buggy.

Mihawk is godsent steady as the golden sunrise Shanks only sees through the porthole as Mihawk wipes Buggy's grey face, holds cups of water and spoons of porridge, does all the things Shanks should be doing, all the things Buggy needs from him. It's so much easier when he's the one lying gangrenous in bed, real adults around him taking care of everything and all he has to do is drift.

All Shanks can do is let Buggy lean against him tiny and too hot, tell him again and again that he's safe, that Shanks will keep him safe. Lie to him, again and again as the hours are endless the nights madness and Shanks begs he knows not who for this torture to never end.

They're three days out from the rendezvous when shouting wakes Buggy up, and Shanks is torn between gathering him up and pushing him under the bed out of sight while Mihawk tilts his head and keeps lounging there like the noise isn't coming closer.

"It's Marco," Mihawk says, cold water dashed over Shanks' rising panic. "Don't you recognize him?"

His haki's been locked down all week for reasons that really should be obvious, but he's saved from explaining that by Marco coming in, rain-damp and still faintly glowing. Buggy lights up when he realizes who it is, giggling as he says, "Marco, you're old too!"

"You are just tiny, Bug." Marco grabs Buggy's hand, presses two fingers against his wrist. "I heard you got hurt. What happened?" He leans in, stage-whispers, "Was it Mihawk's fault?"

"No!" Buggy tugs Marco's hand to his chest, the deep cut that his devil fruit should have made him immune to. "He saved me! He's the world's greatest swordsman and my right hand!"

"Really now." Marco's always been good with kids and Shanks doubts Buggy can even tell this is a proper examination, not just showing off his battle wounds as Marco runs a finger down the line of stitches.

"I'm a yonko!" Buggy declares, more energy than he's had all week. "Do you know what a yonko is?"

Marco can't quite hide his wince as he helps Buggy set the too-big shirt to rights. "I know you're a yonko. I didn't know Mihawk had been promoted. Can I take a look at your feet?"

Buggy collapses back against Shanks, grabs his empty sleeve. "They hurt."

"I bet it does, but I'm a real doctor now. Let me see how I can help." Marco smiles gently, and for a moment Shanks can't see their fellow cabin boy following around the grown-ups. Marco is one of the grown-ups, calm and confident and ready to fix everything.

Unfortunately, Shanks is also one of the grown-ups, and he knows how much of that is false bravado.

"Only looking," Buggy says, turning his face into Shanks' chest so he doesn't have to see himself. Shanks wraps his arm around him, hiding him best he can while Marco delicately unpicks the bandage knots and Mihawk watches them all with tight golden eyes.

"Cut it off about here, yoi," Marco says, first person to vocalize what they all know and refused to say.

"You're not funny," Buggy mumbles. "It's not funny when Roger says it and it's not funny when you say it."

And oh, Roger did used to say that all time, Shanks remembers, until he'd said it in front of Marco and Marco had torn him a new one in full doctor-dreaming teenage indignation, Whitebeard backing him up without a trace of laughter, and Roger had never said it again.

"I don't know if I can save the knee," Marco continues, and Shanks is nauseous from the words or the half-healed mess, the smell. "Ah, I wish I'd been closer."

"What do you mean, save the knee," Buggy asks, looking up to Shanks wide-eyed and bare-faced. "Shanks, what does he mean?"

"This one's better," Marco says over the shattered remains of the other one. "See, at least four inches below the knee, plenty of room."

"There is visible bone," Mihawk says at the same time Buggy repeats, "Shanks what does Marco mean?"

"Yes, both feet are beyond saving, but the infection hasn't travelled up nearly as far, and we can only cut so close to the joint," Marco says.

"That's not funny! Shanks, tell him that's not funny!" Buggy shrieks and Shanks is frozen as Marco kneels on the floor next to the bed, takes Buggy's hands in his.

"This isn't a joke Buggy, I'm sorry," Marco says and he sounds so fucking sad. "Your feet are too hurt. They can't heal. They have to come off."

"No!" Buggy shrieks, and Shanks realizes Marco's holding his hands to keep him from hitting. "No, you can't, you can't, Shanks tell him no," and his face is turning red and he's arching his back, heaving, trapped, unable to escape, slamming his head against Shank's chest three, four times before Shanks realizes it's supposed to hurt.

"Please," Buggy sobs as Marco pulls him into a hug, "please, I'll be good, I promise, please don't cut me up I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to I'll be good!"

"Oh, baby, you did nothing wrong," Marco tells him, shaking his head at Mihawk with intent until Mihawk catches on and carefully holds down Buggy's legs feebly trying to kick. Buggy keeps apologizing, begging, crying and this is the worst. This is worse than losing his own arm. At least then the sobbing child was okay.

"You need to calm down," Marco says, not gently enough, "deep breaths, can you do that for me, yoi?"

"You just told him his feet need to be hacked off, I think he's allowed to be upset." Shanks wasn't expecting the words to come out at all, let alone dripping with so much venom.

Marco ignores him, holding Buggy tight and Shanks has the urge to rip him out of Marco's arms, to flee but to where? "Breathe for me, Buggy, please," he says. "You're going to make yourself sick. You're not in trouble, I promise, you can be sad, I just need you to breathe."

Buggy wails and apologizes some more, but Marco is implacable and he's right besides, and Buggy eventually settles into ragged whimpers against Shanks' shoulder. Mihawk produces a handkerchief from somewhere and shoulders Marco aside to wipe tears and snot and sweat from Buggy's face. "I will be your feet as well," he says, solemn as a vow, and he is not Buggy's brother and he doesn't even like him.

"I don't want you to," Buggy says, trying to burrow further into Shanks, under his skin perhaps. This is so much worse than the awful tearing of leaving Luffy. He couldn't see Luffy. Luffy isn't his little brother.

"Nobody wants this," Shanks says and Buggy doesn't remember these words and Shanks wonders if they burned Rayleigh's tongue then as much as they burn his now. "Regardless, it must be done."

Buggy mumbles, "It's gonna hurt," but Marco shakes his head.

"No, you're just going to take a nap and when you wake up nothing will hurt, yoi. That much I can promise you."

"When," Mihawk asks, low and calm, steady voice and steady hands and steady gaze and Shanks kind of hates him in this moment. No, he does hate him.

"Whenever you're ready," Marco says. "It'll be… simple, now that I'm here."

He doesn't say easy, at least, though Shanks saw the word on his lips. "Buggy," Shanks says, and he doesn't know how to continue. He's not Roger. Too many people see his hat and his haki and think he's supposed to fill Roger's shoes, even his own brother. But there's a magic Roger had -Luffy has it too- Shanks doesn't know if it's something they were born with or something that Roger taught to Buggy because he's never mastered it.

All he can think of is to tell Buggy to lie back and take it, and he can't, that's wrong, so wrong, a half-thread of memory as Rayleigh drunkenly asked Roger if that's what they were going to do and he doesn't remember what they were arguing about, only Gaban picking him up and carrying him away, only Gaban saying don't worry, whatever happens we'll take care of you.

Buggy is looking up at him and Shanks has to make it happen. Has to force himself. It's not anyone from the Jackson who comes to his rescue but the memory of Benn Beckman, and the way he confessed his trick to Shanks, never let them see you sweat and it's a little late for that but he tries anyway. "We trust Marco, right?"

Buggy nods, and over his head Marco gives Shanks a speaking look he refuses to hear.

"Then close your eyes and count as high as you can," he says. It's what they did before they were big enough to defend themselves, hidden away, and someone always came to get them. Eventually. "Whatever happens, I'll take care of you."

Buggy nods, and closes his eyes, and Shanks flees.

He does the mature responsible parental thing while Buggy is being mutilated saved in surgery.

He gets drunk.

It's less about the alcohol at first and more about the memories. Rayleigh wiping up spilled drops with long fingers, licking them clean while Momo protests that fingers do not go in mouths. The way Roger's breath smelled when he kissed them good night and promised it would be better in the morning. Gaban sighing I'll take your watch with a bottle in his hand and Oden pouring sake whenever someone's cup was less than overfull.

It takes a lot to get Shanks drunk, banished to the stern under the coconut trees. Mihawk isn't there; he's off bonding with the denden mushi again, making calls, calling in favors. Shanks is too drunk to care, doesn't remember why Mihawk is even here in the first place, why Lucky is pouring another drink, and another and another. He doesn't even remember that Marco is here either, until Marco comes up to him and passes blue flame through his hair, his skull, his blood, and he is suddenly, violently sober.

There is blood smudged on Marco's hands, now wet on Shanks' skin. Buggy's blood, he assumes. Shanks leans forward and vomits on his shoes. Marco deserves this.

Marco agrees, or at least lets it happen, waits patiently as Shanks lets it pass through him. All the fear, the disgust, the remembered pain, the bone-deep wrongness he's never really learned to live with.

"It's done," Marco says when Shanks sits back up and wipes his hand over his mouth. There's a brief flicker of blue, and the mess is gone like it never happened.

"You're not going yet," Shanks says, not asking but telling. He can't. He let Marco take Buggy and that's the hardest thing he's ever done and Shanks doesn't do hard things. He shows up late and dips out when it gets hard.

"Not until someone is able to take care of him." Marco drops into a squat in front of Shanks, elbows on his knees exactly like he used to when he was a teenager trying not to sit in the wet. "An arm isn't a leg," he says, waving at Shanks' stump. "It doesn't have to be you, but someone will need to learn, yoi."

Shanks nods, lets Marco pluck the bottle from his hand and drain what's left in a proper Whitebeard-learned pirate swig. "It went as well as it could," he says, voice echoing oddly against the empty glass. "No surprises, but."

"But what," Shanks asks, and his grip on his haki is slipping, he tightens it down but Marco falls back anyways, bottle rolling across the deck. "But what, Marco."

"But he's a kid, who was pretty sick already, who lost more blood than he kept, and we're three days out from the nearest hospital because he wouldn't have survived until then." Marco isn't fighting the pressure, starfishes out under Shanks' fear and anger and fear, doesn't stop talking. "Your doctor doesn't have pediatric equipment, I only brought what could fit in my pockets -it's bad, Shanks. It's really bad."

Shanks stands up, thinking to make Marco stop, make him take it back, but Marco keeps talking. "And it's going to suck even if everything goes right. He's going to be in pain, he's going to cry and scream and hate us. The best case scenario is him alive for us to torture with physical therapy for months. Are you ready for that?"

"At least he'll be alive," Shanks says, because Firefist wasn't his brother, not really, not like he was Marco's.

The pressure eases, but Marco doesn't get up, only rolls his head enough to make eye contact. "Yeah. He's not going to die. Everything we do to him is better than burying him."

Chapter Text

"This is your fault," Beckman told Mihawk in the medbay, threading the needle because Hongo's hands were shaking too much. Shanks was banished entirely, Mihawk holding the lamp in his place with one hand, keeping pressure on the terrible canyon in Buggy's shoulder with the other.

"It most assuredly is not," Mihawk said, because he did not sink his blade into the fragile body of a child too small to know haki, too weak to resist if he knew.

"You took down the wall." Beckman handed the needle over and before Mihawk could protest that he was far from the only one with the power and angle to do that, Hongo told them to shut up and let him work.

"This is your fault," Beckman said again after Mihawk called Perona and Zoro, Crocodile and Marco.

"Teech did not follow us," Mihawk replied, though he has no proof of that. Flashy as the clown is, Mihawk is more than capable of discretion, and it should have been enough. If it wasn't, Teech surely wouldn't have waited until they were with the emperor who'd held his position the longest? Who'd faced that metal punk Kidd and walked away, unlike Charlotte.

"This is your fault," Beckman said a third time, after they heard that Silvers Rayleigh was calling Teech's bluff, after they heard the one who ate that damned fruit was found in the rubble, head and hands neatly severed, and with them any hope of an easy reversal.

"Was I to stand by and let them hurt a child?" Mihawk asked, taking what pleasure he could from Beckman’s scowl before returning to Buggy broken and Shanks shattered, the eye of the hurricane.

When Marco asks if it was Mihawk's fault, Buggy denies it, claims Mihawk saved him, and it rings hollow in Mihawk's ears, incorrect. He'd not caused it but he certainly hadn't saved him from anything, his failure written in bone chips and bruises, on Shanks' face and the rest of the crew's avoidance.

Mihawk is the one who carries Buggy to the medbay, holds his gaze until his eyes close. He could stay, he could make himself stay, but the medbay is small and Marco needs room.

Beckman is waiting for Mihawk outside the medbay, and he jerks his head for Mihawk to follow him to the starboard cathead. He ignores the eyes following them; Shanks' crew will forgive him eventually for their captain's sake even as they'll never quite forgive him for not joining them. What few sailors are in earshot pick up their work and leave, giving the two of them the illusion of privacy.

They're still under full sail, still pushing as fast as they can for whatever island Beckman picked out, but the wooden beam shelters them somewhat from the wind. Mihawk can see clawed scorchmarks, where Marco landed, still faintly smelling of smoke. It is raining but Beckham manages to light a cigarette anyways. Mihawk watches it burn and waits.

Beckman breaks first, of course. There is no patience in this crew. "This is your fault," he says.

"From a certain point of view," Mihawk allows. He did, after all, cleave the stones of the building in two with little care for where the debris landed. He will admit that fault. But he did not enact the transformation in the first place, and he will not apologize for removing the head and hands from a man threatening a child.

"And from the same point of view, Buggy has been your captain for some time," Beckman continues.

"No," Mihawk corrects him. He thought Beckman was supposed to be the smart one.

"You have not left him."

So that is what Beckman is getting at. "Before, it was merely an arrangement of convenience," Mihawk shrugs. "Now, he has my protection."

"He needs more than protection," Beckman says. There's never been a cabin boy among the Redhairs, for reasons Mihawk has heard in great detail. Multiple times. Enough of them care about children to not risk one's safety on the high seas.

"I will take care of him, is that what you need to hear?" Mihawk knows how to make even the legendary Benn Beckman flinch at will, and he levels such a look at him now until the other man cringes away reflexively. "He is under my guardianship, regardless of what reasons you ascribe, and I shall execute my duty."

Beckman recovers. "It is not a question of responsibility," he says. "Only, he's a child, and Shanks would not want to sacrifice him to your pride. You don't understand what it will be like, Hawkeye. Half this crew couldn't do it again for an adult."

Oh, he is talking about Buggy's injuries after all, Mihawk realizes. "Say it plain."

"Can you really take care of him," Beckman asks. "When he is crying and refuses to stop, when you are tired and hungry and he is-"

Mihawk cuts him off. "Of course I can. Do you doubt me?" The rain is cold on his back, endless gentle hissing around his feet. "Save your concern for your yonko, and I will see to mine." Because that's what it is in the end, how Shanks is not dealing with any of this, how Buggy so small shattered him and every day since ground him into smaller pieces. Shanks cannot care for the child, trembles too hard to even hold a cup of water for him. Someone must step up. "I have done this before," he adds.

"You have been alone our entire acquaintance," Beckman points out.

"I have not. Admittedly, the man was older, but not quieter and considerably less portable." Mihawk does not elaborate. Beckman has not earned it. "You will simply have to trust me."

"I want to," Beckman says, quiet and small, like he's not allowed. Then he takes his cigarette from his lips, lets the smoke curl around him like clouds around the moon.

After that, there's nothing to do but wait for Marco to find him and tell him it's done, arrive at the captain's cabin before Shanks, sit next to Buggy laid out on the bed small and made even smaller. Marco has a lecture Mihawk half-listens to about specific arrangements of cushions and rolled towels, complete with diagrams labelled in chickenscratch, notes about the dire consequences of letting him curl up like a dying crab.

Shanks follows Marco, surprisingly sober, and Mihawk keeps his expectations low even as he makes sure Shanks will be the first one Buggy sees when he opens his eyes.

"Shanks," Buggy says, before his eyes even open, trusting Shanks to be there, "Shanks, it doesn't hurt."

"That's good, Bug," Shanks says after a few seconds. Mihawk busies himself pouring a cup of water, finding a straw. Marco hangs back, eyes collapsed shut behind his glasses, and it occurs to Mihawk this probably isn't the first time Marco has been in this position.

"They're gone," Buggy continues. "I can't feel them because they're gone."

All Shanks can say is, "I know." And he does know, more than Marco even can. Mihawk only knows it from the outside, from one time. Zoro was not a child, pressed a finger to his eyelid for a few silent moments, then stood up without a word.

Zoro had broken, eventually -Mihawk doesn't think anyone can lose a part of themselves without breaking down completely and rebuilding- but Zoro hadn't had his brother at his side and he hadn't been so fragile, physically. He'd held out until they were back home, until there were no witnesses save the sun, bright betrayal lighting up the pieces of him for Perona to gather up. Mihawk held those pieces in place until he'd glued himself back together and they didn't worry about bruises -of course not, when Zoro measured his strength by how much pain he could take.

Mihawk could handle fucked-up teenagers -that was, after all, the majority of the pirate community- and he supposes he could handle traumatized children. Really, the problem is Shanks.

Shanks, who is running his fingers through Buggy's hair (and that needed a wash, the greasy tangles couldn't be comfortable), Shanks who was murmuring apologies and wiping Buggy's tears. Shanks, whose world is narrowed down to his little brother's face, crumpled and wet and red, unaware or uncaring of the water at his side, the handkerchief in his lap, of the things at hand that might help. Might not, but someone should at least try.

"Let's get you up," he tells Buggy. Shanks doesn't let go but he does slide behind Buggy as Mihawk takes rolled towels and arranges them around Buggy's new position according to Marco's instructions. Half the crew could not stand this, Mihawk didn’t need to be told, could not bear to see the pain around Buggy's mouth, the grief in his eyes. Half of them could, Marco could. It doesn't matter.

This is Mihawk's sins come home to roost, arrogance and wrath destroying in a heartbeat, and his penance the long rebuilding with his own two hands.

(His sister's name was Melissa once, sweet as honey as she glued back what he broke, and all he ever managed was to stick his own fingers together.)

Once Buggy is upright, propped against Shanks' shoulder and fitting under his own stump, Mihawk takes Buggy's chin in his hand and wipes his face gently. Not because he cares overmuch about the mess, but because otherwise it will dry sticky and itchy and is he not in enough discomfort?

"The worst is over," he says, because someone has to, more than because he thinks it will help. Mihawk's never believed merely speaking something will manifest it true. "You have survived. Now, things can only get better." He holds the cup for Buggy, lets him sip water.

Buggy drinks, both his hands wrapped around Shanks' one. Shanks' knuckles are white, shaking with the strain of not crushing Buggy's bones holding him too tight to be taken away.

Gentleness is not easy on the sea.

"I wan' my captain," Buggy mumbles, still muzzy, and Mihawk has to close his eyes until they no longer see Zoro superimposed on Buggy, looking for the man who will be king, for the man with the power to make the impossible true.

He'd told Zoro patience and he'd told him you have three hundred and nineteen more days and he'd told Zoro have more wine. None of which he can say to Buggy now.

Were Roger alive, neither Marines nor pirates would have kept him from Buggy, Mihawk was told in the long watches of the night, and he even believes Shanks believes it. Instead, Buggy has Shanks to lean against and Marco to check him over, and Mihawk himself most of all.

Nothing to do with the Cross Guild or the money Buggy still owes him or the delicate political house of cards poised to collapse, everything to do with two terrified too-familiar eyes looking up at him. In the moment he did not see his reluctant ally but Perona soaking wet, Zoro with half his face a mask of gore, and in his ears only an echo from so long ago whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.

Everything to do with a wet washcloth in his hands, saying, "turn your head," and the child unhesitantly baring his throat and the memory better for him if a millstone was hung around his neck, and he was thrown into the sea, than that he should offend the little ones. Everything to do with a near-endless night to meditate and make his choice, to commit to the split-second decision he made -when had he made it, between the wall falling to his sword and everyone falling to Shanks' command and Shanks falling to his own knees?

For the third time, a devil fruit has delivered a child into his keeping, for a third time Mihawk will not turn this child away. That this child bears an unfortunate resemblance to Shanks' little brother is a …complication, making things harder and easier in equal measure. This child is much younger than the other two, will need more from him, but Mihawk will not be alone, and the child will not have competition for his attentions, and he has two more years of practice.

Shanks is too shell-shocked to manage more than about half of Buggy's immediate needs, too shaken to hold him steady, and so it is left to Mihawk. Hours of hot dry skin under his hands and whimpers in his ears, tapping out the new edges of Buggy's body along the melted-wax seams that were the best Marco could do, acclimating fresh skin to the softest rags, working up to clean towels, maybe one day the seams of pants. Kneading scar tissue and stretching out joints, Buggy turning away from him, seeking comfort in Shanks' averted eyes, sleeping in snatches showering in selfishness.

He continues the daily calls to keep Crocodile updated, not sure why when Crocodile can't decide if he's going to meet them or wants them to come back or if he'll keep the guild running until Mihawk delivers Buggy to Silvers Rayleigh. Mihawk doesn't care what Crocodile does, but he isn't calling Sabaody no matter how much Buggy asks for his Ray. Shanks can have that conversation, the one selfishness Mihawk allows himself.

Perona hasn't called back.

Mihawk misses Zoro fiercely, misses tracking him down lost in the castle, misses arguing with him about how much weight he can lift, misses him stealing Mihawk's clothes and how his breathing was always steady. Zoro didn't say much when he called; the Strawhats are occupied with tracking down Trafalgar Law, and then he handed over the receiver to Beckman for negotiations.

It is unclear if Shanks can lay eyes on Luffy. Half the Strawhats have "beef" with Yasopp. Mihawk does not know or care why they do, what that means. Zoro and Beckman will need to arrange the grand meeting of two yonko crews with twenty years or more of history between them.

Tony Tony Chopper and Cyborg Franky are on the way, coming to Sepultura with Zoro and the rest catching up once their ally is located. When it comes to a child who needs medical attention, the only question is where, and Buggy needs it and so much more.

The first frantic rush might be over, Mihawk thinks that perhaps he is allowed to plan beyond the next sunrise, but when it comes he wonders if Marco is overly optimistic. Mihawk doesn't understand the words Hongo and Marco trade, long strings of consonants from another language, rhyming lyrics to a song he's never heard. He understands too well how Buggy does not like Marco touching him, has decided he doesn't want anyone but Shanks or Mihawk himself to touch him, and yet neither of them can so much as take a pulse.

He doesn't beg, doesn't cry, and Mihawk wouldn't want that, but it is worse, the way he watches Marco's hands like they're coming for what's left of his legs, only his eyes moving as he tracks Marco around the room. He barely blinks, doesn't smile, flinches away from Marco's hands.

Buggy doesn't ask Mihawk for protection but Mihawk wraps his cloak around him anyways. Hongo pulls Beckman into the room, asks him math questions that make Mihawk think of Zoro again, and perhaps this is a mistake but there are too many men standing too close, stealing all the air from the child loose and limp in Mihawk's lap.

So Mihawk stands up, and Buggy is impossibly light against his chest, cradled like a bride or a baby, face turned into Mihawk's shoulder. In a proper hospital, where Buggy should be, there would be a tangle of tubes and wires. Here, there is nothing slowing him down as he leaves the room, murmuring about air as he goes. They do not stop him, and that's as good as permission.

Lucky is talking to Shanks in the hallway, an exercise in futility. Nobody in the crew questions Mihawk on his way to the aft deck. It is possible nobody can see Buggy, wrapped in Mihawk's cloak and hidden under his haki. It's equally possible that every last one of them is choosing not to interfere.

It's cool but not cold here, and Buggy pokes his head out to look at the waves, his hair curling in much the same way as the water, same color as the water. Mihawk realizes this is the first time he's been conscious outside that room since…Since.

"Wanna go swimming," Buggy says, not a request, just an observation.

"Later," Mihawk says. "When we are not in deep water full of man-eating monsters." He looks down, catches Buggy's gaze. "That is the only requirement."

"Will you come with me?" Buggy asks, guileless.

"Yes," Mihawk answers, guilty and relieved at once that he can finally give Buggy something he's asked for.

"Gaban says the same thing." Buggy turns back to look at the water. "About man-eating monsters. He says captain's ego is not more important than our safety."

"And does your captain agree?"

"Yeah, but he says it's not ego, they'll leave us alone if he's with us and Gaban just doesn't want the clothes in the laundry when it's his week to do it." Buggy picks at Mihawk's pendant idly. "Gaban never says it when it's Rayleigh's turn."

Mihawk tries to imagine the Dark King pinning clothes up to dry. When did he and Shanks start wearing such atrocious patterns?

"'Sides," Buggy continues. "Nothing bad can happen when the captain's around. He won't let it. That's why he's the captain." Oh, Mihawk understands now, the grand design, his own place in it. He could have done no different, of course, and so he must atone, but he is not the center. Buggy peers up at him. "Don't you have a captain?"

This is divine punishment, handcrafted hell, but not for him.

"I do not," Mihawk says, which is true.

"You should find one. Stuff like this," and here Buggy waves to encompass the ends of his legs, his current age, the clouds threatening rain above and the sea kings below, deeper than light will ever reach, "It doesn't happen when captain's around."

Behind them, the banked burned-wine fire that is Shanks stops approaching, turns and flees.

They sail on and on and on, and Mihawk must bring Buggy inside eventually, though they stop at the baths. Buggy hates it, complains of not needing help, blames Mihawk for permitting the test when he discovers that yes, he cannot manage alone. He does admit it feels much better to be clean, only to realize he has no clean clothes.

He is shrill, and exacting about which clothes to borrow and puffs out his cheeks in frustration just like Perona, and Mihawk makes a note to ask Lucky for donuts. Buggy complains about the borrowed shirtsleeves being too long, drops his dinner down his collar, and informs Mihawk -at great length- that Rayleigh is much better at hairbrushing. This is no surprise; Perona said the same thing about Zoro. Mihawk braids it into two blue ropes like Perona taught him, like someone else wore her hair after the bath long ago, folds them around each other in the hopes they won't get too knotted while he sleeps.

Marco and Hongo come in one last time, and Mihawk hates Marco suddenly, viscerally, a sword to his chest laying it open to the bone. He doesn't want to, but he can't help it when Buggy shrinks back against Mihawk's side away from Marco's hands, when all Hongo can get out of him is monosyllables and muffled whimpers.

Marco smiles like he knows something, like he's forgiving Mihawk when he's the one that should be asking for it. And he's doing his best, Mihawk knows, but.

But Buggy has wrapped his hands around Mihawk's arm, and he can't hold tight enough to hurt, and Mihawk slides his other arm around the child's waist, holding him close when Marco and Hongo are done doing the necessary. He's a child, and Mihawk tries to forgive them, but it's so hard. Easier to welcome a child into his arms, keep him safe.

"We'll make landfall soon," Beckman informs them, escorting Shanks into the room, leaving with the doctors. Shanks is drunk, though not incapacitatingly so, and he takes his place on the bed, lets Mihawk pass Buggy over.

Once, a very long time ago, all three of them had shared too much wine and Buggy had shown off his devil fruit. His legs had rolled under the table, and Shanks had pinned him down in his lap, laughing, and Buggy had spit a string of profanity that would make a Marine admiral blush, slapped at Shank's face and arms as he refused to let go.

Mihawk's thought about that night a lot lately.

But now Buggy fits into the space where Shanks' arm should be, and Mihawk where Buggy's legs should be, two cloaks serving as blankets. Yoru stands guard at the foot of the bed, between Mihawk's boots, and Gryphon rests across the head, the only pillow Shanks has ever used. No place safer than a nest of blades, than the captain's cabin on a yonko's flagship.

Buggy looks up at Shanks with the expression only little brothers can make, the adoration and trust that is the privilege of a child, love shining in his eyes and Mihawk wonders why their mouths are always slightly open when they look up. Shanks reflects it back down, face unfamiliar in gentleness, and Mihawk wonders if he knows he is, wonders if this is always what they've been under the smirking and the squawking and the long years of silence. Wonders if he should avert his eyes from their nakedness, or if he should bear witness instead.

Shanks tells him a story, something Buggy was there for but doesn't remember; a city in the clouds and people with wings, their captain taking them through the jungle, their navigator tracking them down and rescuing them when they got lost. Mihawk never met Oden, never tasted his famous stew, but Shanks tells Buggy about the special jungle version, how Buggy got distracted chopping vegetables and sliced his arm halfway to the elbow, how Oden threatened to add the chunks of Buggy to the broth. He'd called for Rayleigh to stop him, and Rayleigh had come over to lecture Oden on putting meat in that was clearly more suited to sukiyaki.

It's a true story, Mihawk has no doubt, because every last man on Roger's crew was an absolute lunatic. They had to be, to survive their captain. It's a true story, Mihawk knows, because Shanks is letting it pour out of his mouth without conscious thought, his eyes far away, fixed on some point not even Mihawk can see. He doesn't notice when Buggy falls asleep between them, rambles on about a ship with four children running from stem to stern, until Mihawk prods him with his foot.

"Ah, we had some good times," Shanks says. He's never had a cabin boy. Roger had two, and Oden's children besides. Mihawk thinks that if Shanks had one, the kid would be all right, but Shanks doesn't agree. Oh, he likes kids well enough, his bare head more testament to that than his empty sleeve. He likes kids too much to inflict himself on them.

They talked about it a lot, a long time ago. It doesn't matter now, except for Mihawk to make sure Buggy knows he is no longer a cabin boy, that he is something else. Mihawk doesn't want to find out what would happen if Shanks had a child thrust upon him. He's barely holding together as it is.

So Buggy is Mihawk's yonko, and Mihawk is his right hand, his legs, his guardian. Shanks is his big brother, his pillow, his safe harbor, but not the only thing between him and the sea.

"Landfall tomorrow," Mihawk says. "I can hear the birds."

"Yeah, Benn says there's a big town. Really more of a small city. World Government aligned but no forces to worry about."

"I wish to acquire new clothes for Buggy. Ones that fit properly. That requires him to leave the ship."

Shanks laughs. "Are you asking permission?"

Mihawk catches his gaze for the first time all day. "He doesn't know about Roger."

"He knows Roger isn't here," Shanks demurs, trying to look away. But there are things besides haki in this world, other powers in the eyes of a hawk, and Shanks has no defense against them.

(Surprising, when Buggy wields those powers as well. Mihawk wonders, sometimes, how much Buggy learned from his captain. He suspects it's more than anyone knows.)

"He will find out, one way or another. Should he hear it from us or from strangers?"

Shanks lays down, strokes a hand through Buggy's hair. "What are the odds it will be tomorrow?" he asks. "Give him time." He means, give me time.

But Mihawk does not trust fate, does not court disaster. "I will not take him off the ship without telling him," he says. "And he cannot stay on here forever. If you do not tell him tomorrow, I will."

A hard choice, perhaps, and it will not be easy, but things with children are rarely easy. Simple, perhaps. Not easy.

He lets Shanks break his gaze, and says no more. Shanks curls around Buggy, too small and smaller still, and in his sleep Buggy stirs, shifts, grabs onto Shanks' shirt and hauls himself closer. Mihawk folds his arms, settles in to keep watch, and does not think about pink hair heavy on his shoulder.

At least, with Marco's help, they don't have to worry about infection or wounds taking too long to close or Shanks' least favorite word: neuroma.

Marco is sticking around for a while yet though, not willing to leave until he's sure Mihawk has mastered everything Buggy needs. Cotton balls swiped over skin, stumps wrapped tight for reasons Shanks leaves to Mihawk. He's a meat-headed barbarian who slices first and asks questions later, he can deal with all the foot shit.

Some things cannot be entrusted to Mihawk's too-sharp bluntness, but he doesn't bluff, so after breakfast Shanks takes Buggy to the stern under the coconut trees, gives him a silver coin and tries to find a place to begin.

Roger treasured the freedom to follow a whim, and his crew was men who leaned into their strengths, covered each other's weaknesses. Not a damn one understood why Buggy would spend weeks walking a coin across his knuckles then making it vanish between his fingers. Slow and clumsy at first, dropping it more often than not, scrambling after it before it could fall into the sea because Rayleigh would only give him so many of the big ones. Shanks never learned how, gave up after the first one rolled overboard and focused on where his natural talents lay.

Drinking, mostly.

Now Buggy is relearning it with the same unchildlike focus he did the first time, though he won't make a mad dash for the open water anytime soon. "You lost captain's hat," he says, eventually, the sun turning the coin to a shining moon sliding off his knuckles.

"I know exactly where it is," Shanks counters. He doesn't know how much to tell Buggy. How to tell him about Luffy without Roger, about Laughtale without the secret every one of the Roger pirates carries still. The last time he saw Luffy was Marineford, and there's no way to explain that without Firefist, and fucking flaming cock hell Shanks does not want to go over that. Buggy was in the thick of it; Shanks learned most of what went down from Buggy himself.

Maybe he should let Mihawk tell him, or maybe just keep him on board forever, hidden and safe- his treasure like Roger used to call him, used to say one man's trash was Roger's treasure.

And then Rayleigh would look over his glasses at them, say, "Call him trash again, and I'll divorce you, take the kids, and open up a bar in Sabaody with Shakky."

Rayleigh had done that in the end, though he didn't make them stay, let them travel halfway across the world to watch. Sometimes Shanks thinks Rayleigh was right to stay behind, to not see the blood jet once, twice, before Roger's heart stopped and then it flowed, flooded like a rainswollen river.

Sometimes Shanks thinks unkind thoughts about Rayleigh not sharing that memory. Only Buggy, of all the people who knew why, ever shared that with him, and he's forgotten. Shanks needs to tell him, and he needs to tell him the wrong way because there is no right way, because all Buggy has left is Shanks, pisspoor substitute always, better than nothing.

"Did Captain do something…bad?" Bugg asks, eyes on his coin. "Is that why you don't wear his hat?"

Shanks manages a smile, because Roger was a pirate, and what makes a thing good or bad anyways, and because nothing Captain ever did would make Shanks stop wearing his hat.

"No, Bug, that's not why. There was a little boy who needed it more than I did." He pulls Buggy closer, lets Buggy lean against him instead of the bench. Prays Buggy doesn't ask why Luffy needed it, why he left Luffy behind. Whitebeard and Roger both kept little boys who ate devil fruits safe on the high seas, and Shanks didn't know back then what it meant to be Garp's grandson.

Buggy twists, looks up at him all silver eyes and clever fingers sneaking around Shanks' wrist.

Shanks was found floating in a treasure chest, kept safe and protected.

Buggy was found on a garbage heap, alone and abandoned.

"Where's Captain," Buggy asks. "What's he doing?"

Shanks held Luffy and treaded water and told him it was okay with his arm still dripping, kept his face poker-straight and his voice steady until Luffy was returned to Makino and that was easier than this.

"He died, Buggy." And then, because he'll find out one way or another, "The Marines executed him."

"How?" Buggy whispers, and Shanks pulls him closer; if he slips off the bench will Shanks be able to haul him back up? "How did they get him?"

"He turned himself in," Shanks says, and finds the last secret, because Buggy deserves to know, "He was sick, and he was going to die, so he let them kill him quick." Buggy is suddenly twice as heavy against Shanks' side, and his nails are sharp digging in Shanks' skin. "And then we went with Rayleigh to Sabaody to open a bar. With Shakky."

"Why," Buggy asks, and Shanks doesn't have an answer.

He waits for wailing, biting, he doesn't know what. The horrible noise of Buggy begging Marco not to cut him up. The fevered pleading for Roger to fix it. He wants to scream for Rayleigh to come make it better because Roger had a whole crew to look after and they were an equal part of it, so it was Rayleigh who put them first. Buggy doesn't say anything, just lays his head down on Shanks' shirt and sobs, wordless, almost soundless with how heavy they are, shaking against his arm, and Shanks doesn't know what to say. It's not okay. Buggy isn't okay. Their father is dead, has been dead for twenty years and Shanks still doesn't know after all this time what the fuck to do now.

Shanks holds Buggy until he cries himself unconscious, until it's too much for his too-small body and he passes out in Shanks' lap, hot and soft as candleflame. Holds him longer, until Mihawk returns from whatever mysterious Mihawk errands he was running. His beard is freshly trimmed and he smells like soap. "You told him about Roger?" Mihawk asks.

"How'd you guess?"

Mihawk crouches in front of them, produces a handkerchief and swipes at the teartracks on Buggy's cheek. "I was the one to tell my sister about our parents."

Shanks did not know Mihawk had a sister, had parents, had done anything but appear on a Marine ship one day with a sword on his back and a crucifix around his neck.

It helps to know that he's not alone, that this is not uncharted territory. It helps for precisely sixteen seconds, and then he remembers that Buggy is alone, Shanks himself the only familiar face and even that's a stretch of the term.

The sun tracks on, across the sky.