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The only quiet moments for the Kid Pirates existed at night, a reprieve from an especially noisy crew (for such a stoic person, Killer sure kept loud company). Even more ironic, in his quarters, nicotine gum tucked between tongue and teeth to take the edge off the paranoia, the silence he should be grateful for irks him beyond reason. A giddy high is what he needs most— but that’s closer to addict territory than he'd like to admit.
The bed he’s always slept in scratches his skin in a way it never has before. The depression in the blankets doesn’t fit his body’s outline. The snores barely leaking through the walls of his room sound alien to his ears. His mind nags at him, convinces him that this must be a nightmare, a poor imitation of his life conjured up.
So he leaves, as quietly as he can, slipping his helmet back over his untamable bush of yellow.
Wood creaks under his weight as he props open his door with the shoe he keeps by the door for this very purpose, pressing his palms against the hinges to stifle the squeaking. He’d need to ask Kid to oil them again. What an especially detailed dreamland of his.
Out in the open, Killer has no need to tiptoe. He gnashes on the gum with abandon, wringing every last drop of medicine joy out of the rubber as he jumps off the boat, hoping sand will catch him in a soft embrace. He lands harder than he means to, wincing at the pop in his knees. As first mate, he’d know where the ship takes them, where they plan to go— yet the island before him is completely unfamiliar. He can’t even recall seeing it near over the horizon, or through a spyglass.
“What’re you doing out here? Pouting?”
Killer turns, horrified, as two fully intact, fleshy, unblemished arms reach out towards him. Too dangerous, he thinks. To give that privilege back to Kid. Too dangerous.
“It’s called thinking, jackass,” he manages after a pause. Something heavy lies in the air, making him unsure what to say; unsure whether or not he can trust himself to not grasp the hands offered up to him.
Without a pause, Kid wraps himself around Killer, slinging an arm around his shoulder (as he always has), and it mimics him so well his heart jumps and flusters. “You were walking like you were worried about something,” Kid mumbles, a rasp scratching each word, and presses his nose to Killer’s cheek. He smells like sleep. He folds, briefly, to indulge in a moment of insanity.
“You’re a creep. How’dya know that from the way I walk?”
Kid smiles, though not fully but entirely loving in the glint of teeth. “That’s what a decade or so of being around ya will do.” The slip of an accent utterly charms him. His arms, toned but skinnier than they are now, hold him preciously. Killer swats at a wandering hand in his pocket, and Kid, victorious, withdraws a piece of gum.
“Don’t smack your lips,” he scolds; a chewed and practiced line.
“'M not.”
Pale skin glows under moonlight, and Killer runs his hand over the smooth of Kid’s forearms. He thinks of scars, of gashes that made him dizzy from the sight; enough warm blood gushing from the body he held to his chest, soaking his shirt to the point where it had to be trashed. He basks in this brief memory of the days where they were young enough and new on the sea to feel bold enough to down ships for the fun of it, and Kid would egg him on into snorting a few lines in celebration, when it didn’t give Kid a blinding headache like it did now. He traces a circle in youthful skin that he’d never feel again. And he's comforted. “This would’ve been a good moment to say it,” Killer allows, a sick confession.
Eyes drooping with an exhaustion he's become well-acquainted with flick to Killer’s face. “It would’ve.” Killer lets out a breath and leans into his captain’s touch. To see the expression on Kid's face would kill him, so he stares ahead at familiar brick homes with spires leeching into forest leeching into sea. “You’re better with these things than I am,” Kid admits, in a voice so boyish he can’t help but shiver in fear.
Kid shatters on the beach, sea glass reflecting every gentle expression back up at Killer. Countless like the grains beneath him. He doesn’t cry, rounded at the edges where Kid is jagged and broken. It goes against his every atom of being as a first mate, but he can't help it— he fears the stranger they have both become. In a blip of time, he now mourns the boy who built an entire ship with him in mind, even though it was named after another ghost of the past; constructed by Kid who remembered to give Killer a private room (“You'd freak about changing in front of everyone,” Kid had smugly explained) and a kitchen with counters constructed high enough so Killer wouldn't have to hunch over. Reminiscent, dear to him, in a way he'll never have again. Shards, in every conceivable shade and hue of red and orange and neon like the pills Kid swallows to dampen phantom pains, spelt what he couldn’t bear to say. And glue can't even begin to fix this.