Dark

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

Taking the night watch that night was simply routine to them by that point. Years ago, back when it had started, Law had protested, attempting to send them to bed, but it had taken less than an hour for his mind to change. After all, if they weren't getting any sleep then, what was the point of trying?

If the rest of the crew thought a two-man night watch on just one night of the year was odd, they didn't question it. Penguin and Shachi just grinned at them and shooed them off to sleep with smiles that didn't reach their eyes – not that anyone could see that – before barricading themselves in the control for the night, wedged together in a single chair.

What wasn't expected was for the well-established routine of ten years to be broken by a simple knock on the door before it slid open soundlessly to reveal a sandy mop of hair on a half asleep Clione.

"You should be asleep," Shachi scolded, arms crossed and the darkness hiding tear tracks running down his face. Besides him, Penguin shifted, his own arms tightly around the other man's waist, holding him in position.

"I'm not the only one," Clione retorted, seeming to gain confidence at an unspoken cue and striding into the room. The pair watched his silhouette silently as he approached, only to let out simultaneous oofs as a weight settled on top of them. "I don't know what tonight means to you two," he continued, wrapping an arm awkwardly around the pair of them, "but Penguin, you once told me you never sleep well on this date, and I can see that's the same for Shachi."

"Hence us being on watch tonight," Shachi pointed out, although he made no move to escape the awkward embrace.

"It's no problem if I stay too, right?" Clione asked, hands finding themselves under hats and fingers buried in hair seemingly of their own accords.

"You should be sleeping," Penguin echoed Shachi's earlier statement, but his body betrayed him as it moved into the touches.

"I'm not leaving two nakama to face their demons alone in the middle of the night," Clione declared with a finality neither could bring themselves to contest. Instead, they wordlessly shuffled in the chair until he was wedged in alongside them, the arms of the furniture whining in protest.

Clione didn't let go of either of them, settling into the silence and looking at the monitors blinking away in front of them. Everything was quiet, nothing triggering any of the Tang's sensors, but he stayed watching blankly. Eyes forward was easier than looking at the nakama clutched in his arms, especially when they began to tremble.

There was nothing quiet about Penguin and Shachi. Wherever they went, whoever they were with, they always managed to be the centre of attention with their high spirits and senses of humour. At least, that was the Penguin and Shachi Clione had come to know in the months since he'd joined the crew. The nakama clutching at him ever-tighter in the darkness of the night were nothing like that.

Quiet hiccupping breaths on one side, choked up sniffling on the other, there was nothing for Clione to do except hold them close and run his fingers through their hair. Their hats had disappeared at some point, and neither of the faces pressing against his shoulders damply had anything sharp, so Shachi's shades had vanished too.

They didn't speak again that night, but when the morning came and the lights turned on to reveal a half-asleep Clione with the curled up forms of his nakama practically in his lap – fast asleep and faces stained with tear tracks – Law smiled faintly before leaving three steaming mugs in reach for when they eventually got up.

The next year, Clione teamed up with several of the crew to drag the pair away from their attempt to take the night watch and instead piled up in a nest of blankets in the recreation room. No questions were asked – whatever the cause was was none of their business – but the Heart Pirates whole-heartedly threw themselves into making sure Penguin and Shachi stopped suffering alone.

The smiles they received the next day was all the reward they needed.

So that was a longer break than I'd planned on taking, whoops. Updates may no longer be daily, but I still plan on writing more for this yet.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari