Chance

Characters: Penguin, Shachi. Rating: K+. Warnings: minor injury

Penguin didn't like it when Shachi was silent. In the last fourteen years, silence from the ginger was a rare occurrence – the last time he'd been so quiet was that week he refused to say a word after that raid – and to have it now was worrying.

Not that he could say much when he was remaining just as quiet, hauling his friend back to Noona's house – not home, home had gone the day his parents died – with one arm wrapped around the younger teen's waist and the other pulling Shachi's own arm across his shoulders.

They'd lost a fight. It was the first time in a long time – in years – they'd ended up the worst off and he wasn't even sure Shachi was conscious as he hobbled awkwardly through the snow. Maybe that would explain the uncharacteristic silence, and Penguin found himself slowing to look at the other teen, searching for a sign that he was still with him.

He found it in the lurch forwards Shachi made, not expecting the change of pace and getting caught out.

"Sorry," he croaked, breaking the tentative silence for just a moment before resuming their original pace, feeling Shachi's head rest on his shoulder as they limped away from their defeat.

He barely noticed Noona's fussing when they stumbled over the threshold, her panic over their condition fading into background noise as Shachi landed heavily on the tattered old sofa as though his strings had been cut. The analogy probably wasn't far from the truth. Penguin flopped down beside him, feeling the younger teen slide until he was once again leaning against him limply.

Defeat, helplessness, powerlessness. Their encounter with the kid had shaken his beliefs to the core. They weren't the strongest, Penguin realised, the revelation illuminating their past fights in an unfavourable light. How many times had their opponents simply not bothered to fight back? How many times had their target walked away from them, and in their naivety they'd chalked it up to terror when really they'd simply not been a worthy enough opponent to bother with?

The bowl of soup pressed insistently into his hands tasted like ash. He still consumed it, limbs running on an autopilot he was missing the capacity to override until the bowl was empty. Before he could place it down – most likely a thoughtless drop that would shatter the crockery – it vanished from his grip. Next to him, Shachi's hands were similarly empty.

He was tired, he realised, a bone aching tiredness seeping throughout his body and leaving his limbs feeling like lead. Shachi nestled into the crook of his neck, the absent shades and bandages adding an aspect of vulnerability to his appearance – Penguin always knew that it was his job to look after the ginger, but it was rarely so apparent.

Noona was still hovering around them, clucking like a mother hen as she fussed further with bandages Penguin had only a vague recollection of allowing her to wrap around him. He didn't want it, wanted his real mother or no-one at all, and it was that thought that spurred him to move, pulling an unresisting Shachi to his feet and limping alongside him towards the room they slept in.

Their beds were on opposite walls, Penguin's to the left of the door and Shachi's to the right. They both curled up together on the left, finding the strength to cling to each other but not to shed the rest of their day clothes or locate sleepwear. Penguin was still shaken at the brutal lesson about their powerlessness, and he knew Shachi was, too, but now – in the safety of the bed, in the not-home that was all they had – his brain remembered how to think again.

They were not the strongest, but they could be. The kid had been unbelievably scrawny, and coughing enough to be clearly ill, yet he'd taken him and Shachi on with almost no effort at all. That hadn't just been because they were weaker than they thought they were – Penguin had never seen anyone fight that well. Whoever the kid was, he was strong, and if a sick scrawny brat like that could be strong, then so could they.

"Should we follow him?" Shachi asked quietly, shattering the silence. Penguin had almost thought he was asleep.

"The kid?" he asked, just to clarify. Shachi nodded against his shoulder. "Why?" He'd just been starting to reach that conclusion himself, but he was hesitant. Take Shachi out into whatever world there was beyond Swallow Island? Would he be able to protect him there, when he'd arguably failed at protecting the younger boy mere hours earlier?

"To get strong," Shachi mumbled. "We won't get stronger here. And, we always said we wouldn't stay here forever."

That was true. Neither of them could bear to make a living as fishermen for the rest of their lives, not when getting on one of the skiffs was always accompanied by a stab of pain because their fathers should have been there and weren't. They'd never told anyone else, not even Noona, of their plans to one day leave and hunt down the pirates responsible for their losses, but they also hadn't planned on making that departure until they were adults.

Their chance had come along too early, Penguin mused. Another few years and they'd have been ready… but then, what difference did a couple more years make? If they passed up this chance, there might never be another one.

There was nothing here for them except reminders of their grief anyway.

"Tomorrow," he decided. Shachi looked up at him, blinking blearily in the semi-darkness of their room. Penguin grinned at him reassuringly, and was rewarded with one in return. "We'll hunt him down tomorrow."

I finally figured out what went on the the gap between them meeting Law and them following him! This chapter is also Penguin's PoV for chapter 11 - Missing.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari