Brother

Characters: Penguin, Shachi. Rating: K. Warnings: None

Law could be imaginative at times. Often, it was interesting, but Penguin was far from fond of his meddling captain's latest bout of creativity. His head hurt, although that wasn't Law's fault, but rather Shachi's, and he knew his shoulder and abdomen should hurt, and would once the painkillers wore off.

The ginger had been totally unreasonable. Over the past few weeks, he'd come to take offense whenever Penguin told or asked him to do anything, getting more and more explosive at every occasion. There was no reason for it that Penguin could see, Shachi was just being awkward for the sake of awkward, and while he was mellower than the ginger, he still had his limits.

Shachi had hit them earlier, screaming at him after Penguin had asked him to help clear up the game they'd been playing. He'd acted as if Penguin had ordered him to, as if he thought Penguin was going to leave him to clear up all by himself, and when heaped on top of the insufferable attitude that had been mounting over the past few weeks, Penguin had snapped back.

He was still angry, lying in pieces strewn across the various infirmary beds. Law had firmly claimed that he had to go back to help Bepo in the control room, and get a fresh coffee, but refused to leave Penguin alone with Shachi for fear he tried to finish what he started. An hour later, Penguin liked to think that he wouldn't have gone that far, but at the same time had regained enough self-awareness to realised that perhaps he would have done. Law's solution had been to make both Penguin and Shachi incapable of moving by separating their limbs from their bodies and spacing them out across the infirmary, attached to the beds so that only his own abilities could remove them.

After his rage, and mild concussion, had subsided to a manageable level, Penguin dared to hope that maybe they'd be able to talk. While Shachi had been pushing his buttons constantly until he exploded, he wanted to know why. But an hour later, Shachi was still asleep. Penguin could see him in the neighbouring bed, his chest rising and falling slowly and steadily.

The more time passed, and the more his fury faded to let other emotions in, the worse he felt. The bandages around Shachi's abdomen were his fault. Shachi's unconscious state was his fault.

He'd told Shachi he wasn't his brother. That he was glad he wasn't his brother.

Shachi had said it first, true, but Shachi had been upset for weeks. Penguin should have been the mature one, hunting for the crux of the issue before it reached breaking point. They might not share blood, and maybe they'd never exchanged a cup of sake, but Shachi had always felt like his brother. Were such details really necessary when they'd shared almost every waking moment of their lives together?

Not that he had a right to call Shachi that, not anymore. Not now the ginger was lying motionless in a bed with bandages betraying just how much Penguin had hurt him. Brothers didn't hurt brothers.

"Are you awake?"

He startled. Shachi had made no sign that he'd awoken, but it had been his lips that had moved, and his voice that sounded. With his shades still over his eyes, Penguin couldn't see if they were open or shut.

"Yes," he admitted, mentally preparing himself for another tirade. Shachi felt distant, in a way he had never quite felt before.

Silence stretched through the infirmary, heavy and pregnant with expectation. Penguin could think of nothing to say, nothing to try to rebuild their bond from where he'd shattered it with cruel words and a sharp blade. Shachi seemed no more eager to break the silence, still unmoving on the bed, and if it wasn't for the building tension in the room, Penguin would have thought he'd imagined him talking in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he said when the tension got too much to bear, and froze. Shachi had spoken at the same time, identical words with an identical tone and it reminded him of Law's occasional complaints that the two of them could be a hive mind. He opened his mouth to say it again, to try and mend the gap, but Shachi garbled out a repeat before he could form the first syllable.

"I'm sorry! I was stupid! I shouldn't have hit you, I'm sorry!"

Penguin wanted his arms back, wanted to wrap them around Shachi to show him that it was okay, that he'd been the fool.

"I hurt you," he said instead, because without his limbs all he had left was his voice. "Those… those things I said." He'd not only insulted Shachi and trampled all over their unspoken bond as if it didn't exist, but also extended the worst of his tirade to his parents, tarnishing their memories with false statements they didn't deserve. "I'm sorry."

"I said them, too," Shachi said, and Penguin could hear the lump in his throat. The ginger finally moved, letting his head loll sideways to face him, and he could see tear tracks running down his face. "I… I like you being my brother. If you'll still have me."

Penguin could hear the tentative hope quivering past the tears, fighting against the avalanche of probable rejection, and felt his heart break. He had done this to Shachi. He had been the one to reduce the proud, confident ginger to this nervous shadow. He could never forgive himself if he didn't rectify it then and there.

"If you'll still have me," he parroted. "Oh, Shachi. I should be the one saying that. I messed up. I messed up so, so bad."

He reached for Shachi, finding him suddenly in arms' reach, and pulled him close. Arms wrapped around him in turn, one hand gently touching at the lump on his head guiltily before Penguin pulled it away, only vaguely recognising the sound of a door shutting and the fact that neither of them were in pieces any more.

His fingers found the bandages on Shachi's stomach the same time Shachi's found their mirror counterpart on Penguin's own body.

"We weren't ready for those knives," he admitted into Shachi's shoulder. The ginger nodded against him.

"Law can keep them for a while," he muttered in agreement, and his arms tightened around Penguin.

They hadn't yet addressed the elephant in the room – the why Shachi had exploded in the first place – but for the moment Penguin was content to curl up with his precious nakama, his brother, and wait for them both to heal.

I was asked for a companion piece to Feud (chapter 65). Hopefully this explains a bit about why they fought, as well as showing their reconciliation after they cooled down and realised they were being idiots.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari