Mortality

Characters: Penguin, Shachi. Rating: T. Warnings: death mentions

It should have been obvious, right from the start, but it hadn't been. With Law around, it didn't really matter what happened to them, because it was always going to be okay. Their captain could fix anything, right?

Maybe it was because he almost hadn't, that time. Law's abilities almost hadn't been enough, and the death they'd been dancing with for the last decade and then some came knocking on the door, determined to collect this time. It hadn't, Law having enough stamina, enough knowledge, to snatch them away from the snapping jaws of death, but it had been close.

It had been far too close.

That was a wake up call – that no matter how good Law was, he wasn't infallible. One day, his best wouldn't be enough.

One day, they'd die.

That realisation, and the conversation that had followed, had been one of the hardest things Penguin and Shachi had ever had to face.

"What would you do without me?" Penguin asked Shachi, alone in the dark of their room after lights' out, when they were supposed to be sleeping. Neither of them were asleep.

If it was the daytime, without the realisation looming over them like a heavy weight on their chest, Shachi would have laughed it off. A life without Penguin? Unthinkable. In the darkness, the stillness, the levity wouldn't come. He bit his lip, his teeth closing with more force than he'd intended and introducing a copper tang to the inside of his mouth.

"I don't know," he admitted instead, the quiet words still too loud in the night. "I don't know if I could. I'd try- I hope I'd try. The guys would help, Law and the others. Bepo. But I don't know… I don't know if it would be enough."

Silence stretched between them. Five seconds, ten. Twenty.

Thirty and then the bed creaked, bare feet pattering up the rungs of a ladder until Penguin rolled into Shachi's bunk, wrapping his arms around him firmly and pulling him close.

Shachi returned the gesture, burying his face in Penguin's shoulder.

"If I lost you," the older man said, hesitating and running a hand through untamed ginger locks. "I think I'd leave. No more piracy, and no more wars. I'd go home, back to Noona and Kaa-chan and Tou-chan. A life of piracy without you isn't worth it."

"I wouldn't want to leave Law," Shachi admitted. "He'd be too broken up for me to just… leave him. Or anyone. I couldn't do it."

"I know," Penguin reassured him, his voice thick with tears that weren't allowed to fall. Beside him, Shachi sniffled. "I wouldn't ask you to."

They gave up talking, then, too strained to continue. There was another possibility, one they didn't dare voice for fears they'd force it to reality.

If they went together, they wouldn't have to make the choice. It would hurt Law, Bepo, everyone, but it wouldn't hurt them. They were pirates; a bit of selfishness was fine.

Except, they couldn't seriously consider it a viable result, because then they'd start working towards it, and being killed was one thing, but taking their own life was another thing all together. They'd survived the worst the world had thrown their way until that point, twenty years of pain and heartbreak. They were fighters, and it had been going on too long for them to consider ever giving up now.

Someone wondered if Penguin and Shachi ever had a conversation about losing each other. Well, they tried.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari