Brass and Brassica

This is a story, this is a story, this is a story of a flower embedded heart.

In a not so dusty garage south of the river, Eustass Kid masks up, eyes red like his hair. Dust—as inevitable as the pollen swirling through the sky—hardly settles on the workshop's surfaces. Kid likes to keep things clean. Killer is the face of the business when needed.

Four vehicles neatly parked on the scrubbed but oil stained concrete floor are scheduled for servicing. Behind a heavy curtain in a corner of the shop, light flashes as Heat works on car body panels.

Industrial gloves, protective glasses, long sleeves and pants—dreads tied behind and up—Heat's respirator mask also shields him from paint fumes, acid and particles.

Killer mans the shopfront every day.

Wire, a tailor in the city, sews masks for Killer's vibe, and to keep the microbes and Kid's coffee breath away. Stripes and dots and tassels, Killer loves them all, although the last only had one airing. Getting the edges tangled up in the machinery is a risk he won't take.

This is a story, this is a story, this is a story of a cabbage embedded heart.

Under the crisp grey winter air, Trafalgar Law crouches by a plot in the community garden at the back of the town, and lightly squeezes the heads of hakusai cabbages.

A few are firm. It's a little under two months since he planted the seedlings out. He slices the bases with a short handle machete, shakes off the dirt and drops loose chewed-through leaves onto the soil. Pops the harvested cabbages into a laundry basket he has nearby. Bubbling in hot pots with mushrooms, tofu and fish, they hit that cold weather sweet spot.

Kid's hit his head on the undercarriage of the car he's working on more times than a rookie starting out. It's not funny. These sneezes are gonna kill him. The welt on his forehead matches his watery eyes and blazing hair.

In the chemist's, he sneezes and again and doesn't stop, so he can't locate the antihistamines, or whatever the fuck he needs for some relief.

The shop clerk's on their lunch break and the pharmacist drags himself out from behind the glass-boothed partition at the rear of the store where he mixes up chicken's feet and the blood of bats, or whatever the hell they do out there, and asks, "Hay fever, or allergy?"

Kid eyes his name badge.

Trafalgar Law pulls out this packet and that, varying price tags and uses, and his tattooed fingers spell DEATH and his manner makes Kid think there's a reason he's out back and is not front of shop. Like him.

But Kid's own conversation consists of a and ha and choo! So he can't know for sure. The pharmacist adds a bag of masks and tissues to the pile he's collected.

Kid can only shake his head to the—chemist's—to Trafalgar's question.

The quack sighs. "Hay fever?"

Kid nods. Didn't he answer already?

"Allergies?"

Kid shakes his head.

"Brought that one on myself," Trafalgar mumbles.

He beckons Kid to the counter. "Any underlying conditions?"

Another shake.

Law tallies the items but darts looks at this guy like a honeyeater collecting nectar. Ripped and rippling with muscle, he dresses like someone Law used to know, and his nail polish is to die for. He smells of grease and grime and a whole bar of heavy duty soap.

The customer sneezes one time too many and removes and scrunches up the cloth mask on his face, shoving it into the plastic wrap of the set he's just bought. His lipstick, a rich cranberry, is smudged with all the sniffling and nose rubbing. Law spies the shade for only a second before the guy covers his face with a fresh mask, giving Law an apologetic shrug.

"Don't mix the pills with alcohol. Also, they can make you sleepy. If you're driving home, don't." These things wire Law, and he treats a runny or blocked nose with tissue salts. They work for him, and fairly quickly, but not as rapidly as over the counter antihistamines.

Kid nods. He sleeps above the workshop. He pays but pauses outside. A crate of hakusai cabbages sit by the door, an honour box to the side for purchase. They're only fifty beri each. "Goes to the Doctors Without Borders," Trafalgar calls from the cash register. "Not much, but it helps."

Kid nods again. He's swallowed two of the tablets but they haven't taken effect yet. He digs into his pocket and drops 100 beri into the box. It falls soft against a few coins. He scoops up the cabbages and is on his way.

"These are sad, Kid." Killer, cleaning cloth and rubbish bag in hand, gestures to the sticks that once were plants littering the office. He'd prefer they go.

"Hibernating for winter."

Killer rolls his eyes.

"You'll see."

The office of the garage could do with more greenery and Kid recalls not only the cabbages but a few other plants outside the chemist's. Going there means he's gotta deal with that dude again, but the medicine he sold him was effective.

Next to the crate, topped up with fresh vegetables, is a variety of succulents, leafy trailing things, and a flower or two in bloom. The plants directly to the side of the entrance of the shop catch Kid's attention though. They wear the tag and brand of the supplier, and the leaves are regular with the disinterest of birds and insects.

Kid selects two cabbages, drops 100 beri into the box, then strolls into the store to buy the other plant. A black-haired woman blowing pink gum serves him and gives him his change.

"Happy to be of service!" she cries out, and really seems to mean it. Kid needs to know—does that pharmacist force her to wear that doily in her hair?

The guy's back in the store again, no mask, lipstick immaculate. Cabbages, lipstick, fashion. Clumsy too?

"Back for these," the redhead shouts into the shop, gesturing to the produce at the front. Law lopes out. Baby 5's on break, and he's been manning the register. He wants to know what the guy does with the greens he works hard to grow.

Leaning against the entrance of his pharmacy, arms and legs crossed, he asks, "Taste good?", spiky hair tipping towards the oval vegetables with their crinkly leaves.

"Trafalgar," the guy says, and Law's flattens his lips. Damn name tags. "Kid, Eustass Kid." He can't point towards himself while he holds two hakusai, but Law figures it's his name.

"Eustass, you're my best customer."

Kid inspects the cabbages, one tucked into the crook of his arm then the other as he turns them. Killer says they're all good, so he doesn't really know what he's looking for.

"I got rid of the leaves the caterpillars feasted on."

Kid has to admit that there aren't many blemishes. "You grew these, doc?"

He looks up at Trafalgar and catches the nod. 100 beri clinks into the box and Kid stuffs the purchase into his backpack. "Next time I visit, I'll let you know what we use them for."

"Ominous."

Kid grunts and walks back to the garage.

In the workshop, the plant from the chemist's doesn't wither like the other specimens Kid's bought in the past. The soil doesn't really drain, but the plant doesn't wilt. Neither does it grow. Maybe it's a late bloomer or one of those air ferns.

Kid thumps two more cabbages in their workspace.

"Not sick of cabbage rolls?" Killer asks.

"Never." They taste a little different with the white cabbage, but still delicious. Killer experiments and uses turkey or tofu instead of pork for the fillings. Sometimes fish or shellfish.

"Can you make a few extra tonight?"

Law's benefactor had a heart of foolish gold, but aurum not pyrite. Foolish but authentic. Cora grew cabbages in a row of pots on the balcony of the small flat he shared with Law once they left Doflamingo's gang. His brother's gang. Netting covered the seedlings, deterring birds and insects.

"Doffy taught me this," Cora had said as he harvested the greens with a quick slice of the knife, discarding a few outer leaves. "We were hungry as kids. Lifesaver in winter." He and Law had been struggling to survive, but Cora passed along his tips.

Doflamingo also taught Law how to use a machete. A combat knife and a gun too. Battle-ready was core to the Donquixote clan.

It had its lustre. Fine dining, whether pizza or paella, followed dish after dish to the large communal table when Law and Cora were part of the Family. But to Law, there is nothing sweeter than biting into the fresh leaves of the first cabbages of the harvest, the sky as faceless as the apartment blocks and businesses surrounding the community garden.

Eustass is looking through the decorative plants when Law walks into his shop after finishing the banking. He glances up, selects a maidenhair fern, and dumps it in the checkout area. Law looks around for Baby 5 and sees her slicing the tape of a box filled with newly arrived stock. He slips behind the counter.

"These guys sure are hardy," Kid says.

Law flicks the price tag over and rings up the plant. "How's the hay fever?"

Kid smiles, lipstick even. "No mask."

Medicine must be working, Law thinks.

"Four-hundred beri," he says. The decorative plants are hardy, plastic's like that, but maybe things get knocked around in the workshop. Law has little luck with actual maidenhair ferns, but you can't win them all.

Kid rats around in his backpack, pulls out his wallet and a container and pushes that Law's way after paying.

Law, curious, lifts the lid.

"Killer, my 2IC, made 'em. Got pork in 'em, but can make all sorts of fillings," Kid says.

Trafalgar doesn't look disappointed. He pushes up the arm of his coat and the long sleeved shirt under it, and Kid eyes the extra ink on Law's forearm. Some kinda amoeba design. He pulls a wipe from a pack to the side of the cash register, swipes it across his fingers and dives in, but stops himself just before he picks up the first cabbage roll and puts the lid on the container with a slight tenseness to his shoulders.

"Sorry," Law says, wondering if he can keep the container until the rolls have been eaten. "Haven't had lunch." Or breakfast. "Forgot my manners." He tugs the shirt and coat down again, but his gaze is on the now sealed box.

Kid grabs it, opens it, and pushes it across again "Eat up. That's what they're there for."

Law doesn't hesitate. He throws Kid a grateful look, then picks up the roll nearest him and bites into it.

While he's chewing, he indicates to Kid that he should take one too.

Kid shrugs. "It's fine. We've got a fridge full at home, freezer too."

Law smiles as the juices of the roll seep into his mouth and he likes the touch of ground cashews and parsley.

Kid doesn't think he's seen him this animated.

Law wipes his mouth with the edge of his his lab coat sleeve and Kid's sure it's not on the checklist of sanitary. "My guardian used to fix these when I was growing up. I cook them too but it's a treat to have them made."

"Don't I know it," Kid says and picks one up, despite himself. "They're my favourite." Killer's got mad cooking skills.

While they're in season, Law harvests cabbages one day after the next, and a production line evolves between him and Kid. Provide, purchase, cook, provide. It's habit forming. Law skips breakfast and lunch on the regular it seems.

"Hay fever brings 'em all in," Law says in his defence. He's always busy at this time of year, but knows that coffee really isn't one of the five food groups.

"The drugs you sold me weren't prescription."

"Some folks need something stronger."

Kid raids the kitty jar at work for 100 beri coins. They're running low, but the whole crew enjoys the rolls, so not much is said. He drops one into the honour box, and hefts two hakusai into his bag. With a staff of only two, Law's on the floor whenever the assistant needs a break and Kid might just happen to know the times she prefers to go to lunch.

"You don't have to pay." Law exits the store and stands by Kid's side. "Should be paying you and your second in charge." He's been well-fed over the last few weeks.

"For charity, right?"

"Yeah."

Kid leaves the money where it is and lifts an arm in farewell.

Law thinks about the plastic plants Kid keeps buying when an artificial corpse plant, looking nothing like an actual corpse plant, arrives. Something Baby 5 tacked to the end of an order, or a mis-order. A joke present for Hallowe'en, but it's way out of season now that the spring blooms are just starting to form buds. The petals of the novelty are a rich red similar to the sort that Kid likes to wear, and an eyeball stares from the centre of each flower.

Kid left his card a few cabbage roll deliveries ago. Winter is waning and Kid hasn't been around as much now that Law's only harvesting one or two heads a week. He's sure there's still a freezer full of rolls, but Law isn't the only hungry mouth.

It's a quiet day, so he lets Baby 5 know he's going for a walk, and takes the corpse plant with him.

Law enters the garage's office and looks around. Kid and Killer, going over that week's bookings, glance up at the electronic chime. The doc's a different man out of his lab coat. Tendrils push up at the round neck of his black t-shirt. More ink. And a curved 'v' dips under the sleeves of either upper arm leading up to what? Hearts?

"Eustass."

"Trafalgar."

Law looks over at Killer.

"My 2IC."

Law nods. "Killer." A small smile. "Thanks for the rolls."

This is the cabbage dude? Killer hadn't expected the piercings, two small golden hoops in either ear. He makes a note to check the drugs Trafalgar's been supplying Kid with.

Killer's wearing a mask patterned with whirling scythes and Law thinks it kinda fits the conversation.

"Brought a gift." He pulls the joke corpse plant from a carry bag. It sits in front of Kid and Killer, googly eyes staring back at them.

"Reminded me of your lipstick."

It's horrendous. Tacky. Hundred beri store cheap.

Law's arranging the leaves, petals and stems so that they're spread to best effect. He looks around for an outlet, holding a cord.

"The stems light up once it's plugged in."

Killer coughs and returns to the paperwork.

Kid examines the flower. It's petals are a good colour.

Law rustles around in another bag. "Brought this too. Last of the season."

His harvest is mostly brushed clean of dirt and Kid's surfaces of dust so it doesn't hurt when he places three cabbages next to the invoices. Much smaller than mid-harvest produce.

"Raised about 5000 beri for the Doctors Without Borders this year. It's not huge, but I sell other veggies too." He brushes a small amount of soil into the palm of his hand and tips it back into the bag. "Thanks for the support."

Law finally takes in the office in more detail. A guy with blue dreads peers in the window and waves at the corpse plant.

"Maybe it's not appropriate." Law says, looking back at the table and at Kid and Killer's faces. After all, he probably wouldn't keep it in his own work or living space. "But you seem to like the artificial plants, and after all the free meals—" Eustass' mouth doesn't usually hang wide open or sneer like that. "—It's the least I can do." He drops the cord on the desk.

Killer and Kid look at one another then at the still flourishing plants around the office. Law's stepped away from the table and loosens a cloth, stamped with a supplier's brand, from his pocket. He wipes the leaves of the decorative greenery.

"Artificial?" Kid mouths to Killer.

Law taps at the surface below the plant he's dusting, and eyes the saucer below that and its layer of water.

"It's cool, doc," Kid says, plugging the disco diva in. Law turns and grimaces at the light show, then chases the expression from his face.

"They look good," Law says, gaze away from the joke plant and on its plastic cousins.

Kid keeps them, and the corpse plant, although they unplug it. Don't want to give customers seizures, and it's not as if Kid doesn't have a joke skeleton slumped in a tyre tube in the corner of the upstairs balcony. It overlooks the street, and lights up in October, bony legs dangling between the railings.

"Where are they, Kil?" Kid hasn't been to the chemist for a while. Trafalgar—Law—has a few bagged carrots for sale at the moment, and he nabs some here or there, but they're not the essential ingredient of cabbage rolls.

He's dusting the plants—all matter is organic at some stage—and thanks a few gods here and there that he doesn't have to water them anymore. Especially the corpse plant. It looks hungry. Surfaces get cleaned on the daily, the plants less so.

"Told you, Kid." Killer closes the register and stands up. "Wasn't me." The pots the few sticks and withered stalks had inhabited weren't anything fancy or worth stealing. The hapless plants had never even been removed from the vinyl containers originally housing them.

"It's not like you remembered them until now."

And that much is true. Customers come and go. Who knows what their kinks are?

There really isn't much Law can do for the twigs, but he goes through the process of tapping out the rootbound soil, buying new pots, filling them with fresh earth, and tipping a bit of the old in with it.

The bulbs trapped in neglect might regenerate.

Baby 5 selected the pots after Law described the workshop, and based on her own interactions with Eustass. Kid, his 2IC had called him. Blue, yellow, red and she threw in a black one for good luck.

The corpse flower was a mistake, but Law sees that the garage runs smoothly. That Kid has a way with machinery. He quickly fixed a quirk in the cash register that had it jamming at the busiest times one day. Law and Baby 5 are adept with jimmying it open with a screwdriver, but now they don't need to.

Law stencils the red pot with a series of nuts and bolts, joined and pieced together like the shells and casings of creatures of the sea. Baby 5 has fun decorating the yellow one with an array of knives of any shape and purpose, mostly deadly. The guy with the blue dreads had shot Law a peace sign and Law remembers his smile even before the corpse flower lit up, and he can't help himself, so the blue flowerpot is trimmed with a handful of red eyeballs. That leaves the outlier.

"Can't go wrong with crosses," Law says.

Baby 5 draws on a cigarette, exhales, and picks up a paint brush.

Kid isn't sure if the doc'll ever come back to the garage. The kids of clients like the joke plant and he likes kids, so he keeps it, and wipes its leaves and eyes when he remembers. He'll need to head back to the chemist soon and see if carrots have been replaced with snow peas or eggplants, and maybe he'll pick up one or two of the not so artificial plants next to the produce stall.

Law does return. The clerk with him, Baby 5. They're carrying two pot plants each and all four have something growing in them.

Thick greenish-blue leaves push up from the soil of the red pot Law places on a cloth he's spread on the office desk. Patterns around the base catch Kid's eye. He picks it up and turns it in his hand. The pot is covered with nuts and bolts and bits and pieces, shaped and entwined like flowers of the land and the sea.

"Leave that one outside," Law says. "Or if you get some direct sunlight in here. That one had a bulb and it survived transplanting."

"You took them?" Killer asks. "The twigs?"

"He's got sticky fingers," Baby 5 says. "Cops got him so many times for shoplifting when he was a kid."

"Yeah." Law and Baby 5 lower the other plants to the tabletop. "Never really outgrew it, though these guys were looking pretty sad."

"Mercy mission," Baby 5 adds. She turns the yellow pot this way and that, not sure which weapon she likes best.

"Never met a thief who returned the goods," Heat says, wandering in, making a beeline for the blue pot. If he could water the artificial corpse plant, he would.

"Or improved the goods," Killer says.

Baby 5 thrusts the yellow pot Killer's way. "Polka dot cactus," she says. He walks with it to the window sill, counting off all the types of killing implements adorning the ceramic.

"Wire will love this." Kid lifts up the black pot with crosses. A red line runs along its top rim. Baby 5 and Law exchange glances. "How'd you know?"

"Crucifixes go with everything, right?" Baby five answers.

"Stakes, vampires, inquisitions, swords," Law lists. Doesn't let them know there's a few bulbs of garlic waiting to sprout in that one.

"They don't need much water." Law takes the two pots from Heat and Kid and arranges them on the windowsill between the fakes. "I had to replace your plants, but these cuttings are hardy. Once the soil's dried out, give them a soaking. About every two weeks in summer, less in winter."

Heat scribbles everything down.

"Don't pour the water onto the leaves, but into the soil." He turns back to the room. The red pot remains, now resting on the desk. "But this one, once a week and," he curves his thumb and forefinger, "About this much water, and outside if you can."

Kid also curves his thumb and forefinger. "What's that in millimetres, chief?"

Law forgot he's dealing with a mechanic. "Seventeen." Heat stretches out a tape measure. "Not quite an inch," he says.

"Two-thirds of one," Law agrees.

Kid pays attention and dutifully takes the red pot out at the start of business and brings it in at the close. He sticks to Law's watering regimen, and the plant doesn't seem to be a favourite of insects. The specimens inside survive with the occasional water and Kid continues to dust the leaves of the decorative plants and the joke present.

After about two weeks the stalks bear a closed bud.

"A tulip?" Killer asks, standing by Kid's side. A girl cycles past and the sky is clear above.

"Guess so," Kid said.

Another week passes and its red petals still seek the sun. It's the best flower Kid's ever seen. Along with the corpse flower. Work's busy and engines need fixing, banking needs depositing, bills need to be paid. But when he has a spare moment, he wrestles a foldout chair outdoors and sits beside the flower, flips through the latest edition of Popular Mechanics.

One day, he takes his chair into the sun and the doc is squatting in front of the flower, pushing something into the soil.

"Hey," Kid unfolds his chair. He wanders back inside before Law can answer.

Law stares back down at the pot and nudges another seed into the soil. They might germinate. It's better he does them at home and plants them out as seedlings, but he'll do it this way first and let the guys have the excitement of witnessing the tiny sprouts pushing through the earth. pests or the weather will probably take them, but sometimes you get lucky. He's nurturing some at home to transplant once the tulip finishes flowering.

Kid unfolds a second chair to the side of his, the bloom between them. Has two beers that he's clipped the caps from.

"Got time?" Can always drink two beers if Law's busy.

Law nods. It's after work. The days are getting longer.

"Have a seat."

Law does, takes the beer and a sip and puts the bottle to the side.

"I told Killer they were hibernating." Kid motions to the tulip, and flaps his hand over his shoulder in the direction of the plants indoors.

And Law guesses they kinda were, or one plant at least. "The ones inside still alive?"

"The fake plants?" Kid asks.

Law snorts.

"Yeah, they're still alive. Wire took his. Hope it's okay."

"Weren't my plants." Although it's not exactly true. Law picks up his beer again. "Seriously. How're the fake ones?"

"Kids love the Hallowe'en schtick, and Heat."

"You still got it? The eye-bally one."

"Yup," Kid's smile curves behind the rim of his beer bottle.

Law sits back easily, hands behind his head, looking at the way the blue above is increasing in depth and warmth. The night temperatures are still too cold to consider tomatoes, but he'll be able to plant them soon. Kid reaches across and taps at his elbow

"C'n I see your finger tatts?"

Law shakes his arm loose from behind his head and holds his hand out Kid's way. Kid's seen the threat before. Lived it. He slips his fingers between Law's own and Law stills but then squeezes. Kid's hands are strong, and Law's are far from weak. Kid returns the pressure and thinks black polish would suit those nails and that ink, and Law sorts through all the plants he can grow in the exact shade that Kid wears.