A/N: ZareEraz here! I have no idea where this idea came from but it was pretty fun to write :3 Just a heads up since the canon material about this scene is a little screwy, the characters I envisioned for this story are the younger versions of Buggy and Shanks that we see in the Wano flashback, not the flashback we see in episode 8 of the anime and chapter 19 in the manga. Buggy and Shanks do this weird aging up and aging down thing in their flashbacks with Buggy having his Devil Fruit powers in both kinds of flashbacks, so we're just going with the more childish models of our cinnamon rolls :3 Happy Reading!
Picking Up the Pieces
The quiet morning on the Oro Jackson was shattered when a shrill voice started screaming.
"GODDAMMIT! SHIT!"
The yell was so loud that Crocus was startled from his nap and Rayleigh nearly spilled his coffee all over the newspaper he was reading. Even Roger dropped his book into his lap when the scream broke his concentration. Both the captain and the first mate looked at each other and then look toward where the cursing was spewing from.
"What's wrong with Buggy this time?" Roger asked, almost dreading going to see what was going on with the girl as a loud "FUCK!" emanated from the direction of her voice.
"I don't know," Rayleigh replied, setting down his coffee before he could spill it. The man got up from his seat and stretched, motioning for his captain to follow him. Another "SHIT!" rose into the air and both men winched at their apprentice's potty mouth. And then Roger started laughing boisterously.
"Maybe we shouldn't have taught Buggy to swear so much!"
"For the record," the first mate started, giving his captain the stink eye, "You were the one who taught her to swear."
The man looked shocked. "I was?!" He thought about it for a moment before giving his signature grin. "I guess I was! But Gaban helped too!"
"I'm sure he did."
Roger gave his first mate the stink eye now. "And you taught her 'piss off' when you thought I wasn't looking."
Slightly flustered, the blond man countered, "I only taught her that so that she could shoo annoying boys away!"
"And the only one she uses it on is Shanks!" Roger laughed again but their banter was interrupted again when Buggy yelled "PISS OFF!" and the two of them took off running to see what was wrong.
When the pair arrived at the stern of the ship, they found Buggy's head floating erratically in the air with the rest of her body in pieces on the deck, except her legs – they were running around clumsily and bumping into all matter of things.
"Wow, that's still freaky to see," Roger commented, looking at the pile of body parts on the deck. "These Devil Fruits can be so strange sometimes."
"They're all strange if you ask me," Rayleigh commented. "I just wish she hadn't eaten it." Buggy had gotten a scolding last night for eating the Devil Fruit the Roger Pirates had plundered but the girl had been more upset about not being able to swim and crying about a lost treasure map, which she had also stolen along with the Devil Fruit. Getting lectured had done absolutely nothing to curb her pride or her greed, and Rayleigh thought that her current predicament was a fitting punishment for the time being; maybe she'd be more careful about what she'd try to steal in the future. But Roger thought it was hilarious and didn't hold anything against the girl, which irked Rayleigh but if his captain was fine with it, he could be too.
A small crowd had gathered around Buggy in response to her ruckus, but right now, she was more occupied with yelling at poor Shanks than noticing her audience. He looked so worried and had his hands up, trying to placate the screaming girl but failing miserably.
"Get away from me! You are the one who did this to me, ya bastard!" Buggy's head bobbed and wobbled as if she were a loose kite in the wind. The girl clearly had no control over her body, and she swore when her knee popped out of her still-intact legs and everything crashed to the ground.
"Buggy! Let me help you!" Shanks pleaded, trying to get closer to the pile of parts, presumably to help her put herself back together.
"Hell no!" she snapped, glaring at him. "I wouldn't let you help me even if my life depended on it!"
"I saved you from drowning yesterday, you ungrateful brat!" Now the redhead had started arguing back and Rayleigh took it upon himself to intervene before it devolved into their usual fighting.
"Hey, now, you two," he started, but even Rayleigh couldn't get Buggy to stop yelling just then.
"You're the one who screwed everything up in the first place!"
"Be nice, it was an accident after all," Gaban interjected, having gotten the whole story from a confused Shanks last night after he'd dragged a water-logged Buggy back onto the deck. "He didn't mean to startle you."
"Yeah, Buggy," Roger added, grabbing the bluenette's head and bringing her up to his face. "Let's just work this out and all be friends again!"
"Hell no!" Buggy raged, headbutting her captain. She caught him so off guard that the hit actually landed and the man let go of her head as he stumbled back. Buggy then flew off, sticking her tongue out at everyone.
However, her drama was undermined when her body parts tried to follow after her, weaving and floating like a drunken parade. Only her feet seemed to know what they were doing now and tottered after her head with a little more dignity. Despite her best efforts, Buggy left behind her knee, several bits of her torso, and a shoulder. Shanks, wanting to help, started to pick up the pieces but was forced to drop them when Buggy's head came zooming back and wordlessly screamed at him. He jumped back, terrified, and the girl somehow managed to get the rest of her parts to follow her, even if her knee was dragged across the ground until it was out of sight. The crew listened as she banged around the deck cursing up a storm and then waited as her rant faded due to disappearing into the bowels of the ship.
"Holy shit," Roger remarked, rubbing his sore head.
"And that's where she gets it from," Rayleigh poked, finishing the friendly argument from earlier. The man then knelt down and put a comforting hand on Shanks' shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft. He could feel the boy trembling underneath his hand.
Shanks sniffed, upset but trying to be mature about it, and put on a brave face. "I-I'm okay. Buggy is just so mad at me and I don't know how to fix it." He really did feel bad about the whole thing. He didn't mean to make Buggy so mad at him and he hated when she didn't want to be with him. He didn't even understand why she was so mad – he had saved her life yesterday when she fell off the ship and couldn't swim anymore. The redhead looked up a Rayleigh with huge eyes, hoping that he would have all the answers.
Unfortunately for him, Rayleigh did not have all the answers. Buggy was testy at best and she was clearly at her worst right now. He didn't like it when the two of them were truly fighting either – they had their spats but were good friends most of the time. The man gave the young boy a smile and said, "Why don't we all just give her some space, okay? Then we can try to make up with her later, hm?"
Shanks looked a little disappointed but nodded. "Okay," he replied pitifully. The redhead tipped his head down to hide behind his straw hat as he wiped his eyes. Rayleigh patted his shoulder comfortingly and Gaban did the same to his hat. Roger then knelt in front of the boy and smiled.
"We'll make her some tasty food too so that she'll feel better." Shanks saw the red mark on his captain's forehead from Buggy's skull and couldn't help but snort. He reached up and touched the mark and the two of them smiled widely.
"Okay!" he agreed. "But you'd better be careful in the future, Captain!"
"I will! She sure packs a punch!" Everyone laughed, and with that, the crowd dispersed and Shanks ran off to do something by himself.
"Well, I hope that Buggy'll calm down," Roger remarked, standing up.
"She's pretty mad," Gaban replied. "The last time she was this mad she somehow managed to hang Shanks from the flag pole. And then Shanks dangled her from the bow cannon." The trio shivered as they remember how wrathful both children had been that day.
"Let's just pray that we can figure this out," Rayleigh concluded. His crewmates nodded, all of them hoping that no kind of dangling would be involved this time.
…
Deep inside one of the Oro Jackson's holds and behind a wall of crates and barrels, Buggy was really struggling to pull herself together. When she'd eaten the Devil Fruit, she'd instantly understood what her power was, but controlling it was an entirely different story. Somehow she'd managed to get through the night, but this morning was just a disaster. It had started when she'd seen Shanks' dumb face and now she couldn't do anything right. Buggy was pretty sure she had most of her pieces, but she wouldn't know until she got them all back in the right places and that was turning out to be the most difficult part. She'd managed to get her neck to reconnect with one of her shoulders and her arms were at least moving in the right directions despite not being connected to anything as she placed the pieces of her legs where they were supposed to go.
"How do I do this?!" she grumbled, trying to jigsaw herself back together. Her right leg was mostly put together, but still in pieces and she was working on her left one now, and her butt was still in the pile of her torso pieces. "This was so easy before I had to think about it! It should not be this hard to hold your own body together! How the hell am I supposed to live when I keep falling apart!?" When her ankle wouldn't stick to her foot no matter how hard she pressed it together, Buggy started bawling, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She was so overwhelmed and didn't know what to do.
"This is so unfair!" she wailed. "I never asked for this! Damn, you Shanks! And damn that dumb Devil Fruit! I just wanted some treasure…was that really so bad? Why did this happen?!" The poor girl kept crying, the parts of her body that she'd managed to get together falling to the ground when her concentration broke. Now she was once again a sad, floating head with no control of her body and bobbed in the air until she was too tired and sank to the floor.
Buggy didn't know how long she cried, but it was long enough that she wanted at least three glasses of water and her stomach was rumbling. It must've been lunchtime at that point but she was still in pieces and didn't know what to do. She managed to rub her red eyes with her detached hands and scowled at her pieces again, no closer to her goal. Before she could start complaining again, the girl was startled by footfalls approaching her hiding spot. She bit her lip, stifling sniffles, and prayed that whoever it was would not find her and just leave her alone – she was not in the mood to deal with anyone right now. Unfortunately for Buggy, her luck was not that good and a quiet voice called out her name.
"Buggy?" It was Shanks! The girl glared in his general direction and tried to muster up some of her spunk.
"Go away!" she snapped, but without her usual venom. "I don't have any energy to be mad at you right now and I want to be mad at you!" The redhead popped his head out from several barrels and saw the girl, still in pieces, with reddened eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.
"Have you been crying?" he asked, concerned.
"Sh-shut up!" Buggy demanded, still missing her usual venom. "I wasn't crying!"
"Yeah, you were," he pointed out, squatting down next to her pile and giving her a worried look.
"I was…not!" the bluenette sniffed, her lie obvious. "What do you want anyway?"
Shanks held out one of his chocolate bars, offering it to her. "I thought you might be hungry." As if in response, Buggy's two stomach pieces rumbled and she blushed when the boy chuckled.
The girl managed to float her hand over and snatch the candy from Shanks, chewing moodily. The redhead took out a second candy bar and started eating his snack. He watched his friend closely, gauging just how upset she was. Buggy looked more sad than angry right now, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't snap at any moment. They ate in tense silence for several minutes until Buggy spoke up.
"Why are you still hanging around?" she asked, refusing to thank the boy for sharing snacks with her.
"I want to help you feel better," he answered honestly, shoving his empty into his pocket. He didn't even complain when Buggy handed him her empty wrapper and just shoved it in with the other one.
"Like you could do that," she huffed. You're the problem in the first place! she thought but didn't say because he had shared his chocolate with her. The bluenette decided to ignore the pest and give pulling herself together another try.
"What does it feel like anyway?" Shanks asked, after watching the girl struggle to get her legs to stick together for a few minutes. Her hands looked like they were threatening to fall apart on her too, they were trembling so much, but Buggy kept them together at least.
"It feels like my brain is splitting. Which it most likely can do too!" she complained, angrily wiping away some more tears before they started falling again. She didn't need Shanks to see her cry – that would be so embarrassing. "I'm supposed to be able to control all the pieces, but if I'm even the slightest bit distracted –" and with that, her leg split into even more pieces, along with the arm she had been using. "See! They fall apart! Dammit!"
"How do you know that?" Shanks asked, very interested in how this Devil Fruit worked. He was also very happy that she was talking to him again.
"I don't know, I just know!" she snapped, unable to explain how she knew what she knew.
Shanks scratched his head, not understanding. "That makes no sense."
"Shut up." The boy poked one of her parts experimentally and Buggy's anger flared. The knee he poked shot into the air and smacked him in the face.
"Ow!" Shanks held his aching nose and glared at the girl.
"Serves you right!" she gloated. "At least I can do that much! Now piss off."
"I want to help," he insisted, refusing to leave.
"How can you help?" she said sarcastically. "It's not like you know how this works any better than I do."
Shanks thought She's got a point. How can I help, Buggy? The boy thought for several minutes, trying to find ways to get the girl back together. While he thought, the bluenette painstakingly organized her body parts, laying them out with shaky hands or having to use her floaty powers and her brain when her hands failed her. It was a surreal experience to handle her body in such a way, but the end result is that she was laid out in order on the ground like a puzzle.
"That's freaky," Shanks commented, looking at the chopped-up Buggy on the floor. She stuck her tongue out at him, her head bobbing a little in the air. She was getting good at controlling where her head went, but not much more than that – even keeping her parts in order was trying as they wanted to mix themselves up again with her agitation.
Just then, an idea struck Shanks. "What if you thought about it like strings?"
Buggy gave him an incredulous look. "Like strings? What do you mean?"
"Yeah!" Shanks got really excited as his idea came rushing out. "You could imagine that a string held you together, like a puppet!" He pointed to her right hand. "Imagine that there's a string that connects your hand to your elbow and then your shoulder. Try it!" Buggy gave him a skeptical look but took a deep breath anyway to calm herself down. The bluenette imagine the string going from the palm of her hand, up her forearm to her elbow, and then imagined it running up from her elbow to her shoulder, connecting all the pieces together. She felt something snap into place and opened her eyes to find her arm whole again and feeling stable. She moved it around and it didn't break into pieces!
"Hey! It worked!" she exclaimed, a huge smile splitting her face.
"Try it again! Try it again!" Buggy tried the same thing with her left arm, imagining a string running up from her fingers to her shoulder. When that snapped into place as well, she and Shanks both gasped and clapped their hands in excitement. "Do your legs next!"
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"Just do it!" Buggy decided to let the argument on her tongue die as she concentrated again. It was getting easier – imagining that strings were holding her together was working! The girl's left leg snapped together and then her right, and then she did pretty well putting her torso together but ended up losing a few pieces in the process. Her limbs had been simpler to reattach, but her torso had been split into uneven pieces and it took three tries to get everything back in place. Shanks actually had to shove two pieces into Buggy's torso while making a face at the oddness and then hugged her to help keep them in place. The girl ranted at him for hugging her, but she blushed at the affection as well.
When Shanks looked at her face, he said, "Your cheeks are really red!"
Buggy, being Buggy, growled, "Did you say my nose is really red!?"
"You know I didn't say that! I was talking about your cheeks!" the redhead replied, still hugging the girl. "You're all back together! I'm so happy it worked!"
Despite having benefitted from her friend's help, Buggy huffed, trying to pry him off but failing. "This still doesn't mean that I forgive you!"
"For what exactly?" Shanks asked, giving her a confused look.
"Gah! How rude of you not to know!"
The boy shrugged and let go of the girl. "I really don't get it."
"You should!"
He changed the subject. "Come on, Buggy. Lunch should be ready now."
"Don't just ignore me!" she wailed, waving her fists in the air. Shanks just laughed and ran toward the ladder that would take them upstairs with Buggy following close behind. She only tripped up once when her ankle disconnected from her foot and she fell flat on her face. A string of curses hissed out of her mouth and Shanks ran back to pick the girl up and dust her off. Buggy took the opportunity to take the lead and scrambled up the ladder first and hurled taunts below her. Shanks, not one to give up easily, was on her heels. He made the mistake of yanking on her pants and her waist began to split. She hissed at him and the boy let go, deciding that it was better to let Buggy win the race up the ladder than tease her some more.
When the two of them reached the deck, Shanks called, "I found Buggy!" catching Rayleigh's attention.
The first mate smiled and called, "Buggy's out!" toward the kitchen.
Roger's head poked out along with Gaban's and they smiled widely. The captain shouted, "Buggy, we made your favorite for lunch today: hot dogs!"
"Hell yeah!" the girl cheered feeling even better now. She jumped up and down happily before running toward the kitchen. However, she didn't get too far before a problem came up: her arm split into three pieces, fell off, and hit the deck in the middle of her dash. "Shit!"
The girl skidded to a stop to go back and pick them up, but Shanks was right behind her, already picking up the pieces and carrying them with him. He smiled and brought them to her, placing the pieces as best he could against her shoulder and holding them there. Buggy glared at him, but the glare was much softer now. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down and Shanks just patiently waited as she knitted herself back together. The adults watched the two kids proudly – they'd somehow worked their own problems out and had even managed to figure out Buggy's powers a bit.
"Well, I'll be dammed," Gaban breathed as Buggy's arm reattached itself.
"That's where she gets it from," Roger chuckled, and the other man joined in. He then grabbed the kids' attention again by calling, "Come get some lunch!"
Buggy and Shanks whooped and the bluenette surprised everyone by detaching her feet and floating her body toward the kitchen with quite a bit of control while her feet tottered after her. Shanks had stars in his eyes and gushed about how it was so cool that she could float like that and how useful it would be for her to do all of his chores with her new abilities. Buggy, of course, argued back that she wasn't going to do any of his work and stuck her tongue out at him. The crew laughed at their apprentices and everyone was happy that the children seemed to be getting along better for the moment. However, just because Shanks had helped Buggy, that didn't mean that he wasn't above hanging her ass out to dry the next time she pissed him off, sometimes literally. It also didn't stop Buggy from using her newfound powers to conveniently hang him from the flagpole. Some things would never change, and those who knew Buggy and Shanks were perfectly fine with that.
The End.
A/N: And there you go! I hope you enjoyed that short and I'll see you soon! :3