Haunted

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

Clione supposed it was inevitable that not everyone in his new crew – his new nakama – had had a pain free past. He knew of plenty of pirates that had taken to the sea for fortune, fame, and the One Piece, but right from the moment he'd met the Heart Pirates, it was apparent that they were not one of those crews. This was a crew that had another reason for existing – and he'd known of some of those, too.

What he hadn't known was what that reason was. No-one really advertised their pasts, and he could respect that; the freedom to keep your own secrets was a rare one, and cherished. It was safe to assume that whatever those secrets were, they wouldn't impact the rest of the nakama, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Sometimes, though, those pasts came back to haunt them. Clione would always remember the first time he stumbled over his captain, curled up in a corner and tight in the thrall of a nightmare. The captain had always seemed unshakeable, a pleasing mix of wry wit and unyielding authority in equal measures. To find him so vulnerable – so human – was a shock.

He'd run to find someone to help. If he'd touched the captain, tried to wake him, he felt as through something would have broken. He was too new to the crew to be making bold decisions like that. Penguin had been the first one he'd found, but he didn't seem surprised to hear the story on their way back to where the captain was still shivering away in a corner.

"Law," Penguin had said as they'd arrived, kneeling down next to him and wrapping his arms around him. Clione fully expected a Room to form, the captain jerking awake half terrified as a powerful pirate captain would, should be at being disturbed so suddenly. What he hadn't expected was for his captain to barely react, shifting in Penguin's grip until he was comfortable and then keep on sleeping. The only difference was the way the shivering slowly calmed, until the captain was simply just asleep.

Penguin had smiled, pulling him into his arms and standing up. It looked a bit odd, the captain's lanky limbs folded up until he fit in Penguin's arms comfortably, but Penguin did it with such ease that Clione realised it was nothing new.

"Let's get him back to his room," Penguin had said then, and Clione had gaped at the casual nature of everything before following. "Law isn't the only one you'll find like this, sometimes," the other man had added as they'd walked. "Most of us have our demons; just wake us up." Clione didn't think his use of the word 'us' was accidental, but just like with the captain, the idea of the steady, reliable Penguin suffering from nightmares was a mental image he couldn't quite reconcile.

"Does it happen a lot?" he'd asked, and Penguin hummed, thinking.

"Depends on the person," he'd admitted. "But reasonably. You'll get used to who has them when." Clione wasn't sure he wanted to get used to his nakama having nightmares. Uni had so far slept soundly through the night, as best he could tell from the bunk above him.

"What about you?" he'd dared to ask, before allowing himself to stop and think how good an idea that had been. He almost back-tracked, maybe he would have done, if Penguin had hesitated.

Penguin hadn't hesitated, giving him a date that Clione scrambled to memorise.

"Nightmares don't follow a set schedule," Penguin had pointed out. "But you can guarantee I won't be sleeping well that night." He didn't elaborate further, and Clione didn't ask. He didn't offer anything of his own, either, but he didn't have a traumatic date, or anything like that. Not that he'd noticed, anyway.

They'd arrived at the captain's room by then, Penguin nudging the door open with a toe and crossing the distance to the bed briskly so he could lay the taller man down, pulling off the boots and hat before pulling a blanket over him.

"He'll wake up soon," Penguin had said, confident, and Clione didn't doubt him. How could he, when it transpired this was a common event? "Don't worry about it. If you're not comfortable dealing with nightmares, no-one expects you to."

Clione appreciated the thought, but if he was going to be a member of the crew, he was going to be there when they cried as well as when they laughed.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari