[AN: I originally had one large Big Mom-focused oneshot planned, but seeing as I have not finished anything I've been writing in over a year, I've decided to just split up the scenes I had planned for it into Not A Proper Fic, along with other scenes going into my many Charlotte family HCs. Which, in hindsight, makes more sense than trying to make them work as a oneshot. I'll be putting these up pretty much as soon as I finish them without looking over or editing them much.
Fun fact: I'm bad at names, so every time I need a name for one of Big Mom's husbands I pull them from random objects around my room. Deod is from Deodorant. Sorry bro.]
Linlin stared down at the man before her—cowering, sniveling, pathetic—without pity. "Why would you ever leave me, Deod?"
Deod shook his head wildly. "I didn't, I wasn't! Streusan's lying!"
Linlin scoffed. "And why would he do that? Streusan is my most loyal friend." Streusan was the only one who had never left her.
"W-we've talked about this Linlin," Deod said desperately. "You have to know what he's like."
"And what, exactly, am I like?" Streusan demanded. He was holding Perospero—poor little Pero, only a month old—having caught Deod loading up the lifeboat, trying to run away with their precious little boy, red-handed.
Deod flinched, his shaking intensifying. Nonetheless he visibly steeled himself and met Streusan's gaze. "A s-snake. That's what you are. Poison. All you do is hurt Linlin, and I won't let you do it to Pero—"
Linlin had heard enough. She'd trusted him to stay, and he didn't even have the decency to admit to betraying her. She swung her sword at Deod's neck; he flung himself away, eyes wide, and her aim was just slightly off, so she didn't manage to take his head clean off as she'd hoped too. She still cut deep enough into his spine that he was dead before he hit the deck, blood spraying everywhere.
"Ah, what a shame," Streusan said. "He seemed like a good one at first. Well, you did the right thing, Linlin."
Linlin nodded mutely. She absentmindedly pulled a hard candy out of her pocket and popped it into her mouth, just to soothe herself—and immediately spat it out. The sticky, tangy taste of iron was on her tongue, mixing with the sugar, spoiling it. She looked down to her hands which were still, of course, covered in blood.
A mistake. She'd made a mistake. She'd know better next time.