Chapter summary: Things may be rough, but even as a child, Smoker knows his way around the streets and people of Loguetown. For those that don't have such an easy time, he helps out when he can.
A/N: Warning for implied/referenced animal abuse in this chapter!
Smoker Week 2025
Prompts: Childhood + Protector
For a little boy who often refused to go to school, skipping classes whenever he could evade the path of watchful eyes (and occasionally even when they were looking dead at him), for one so often accused of being the most cold and uncaring child in the world, Smoker certainly had a way of destroying the standards others set for him.
Rather, he did when no one was looking.
Lurking in the shadows of adults in town—shopkeeps and sellswords alike, he gained a decent perspective of what an adult ought to know to survive. Most of the knowledge pandered to him within the walls of his classrooms fell far outside that. Surrounded by a town with an undercurrent of conmen and a never-ending supply of merchants and pirates alike, ready to be fleeced of their coin—he knew he needed to listen and glean motivations at a glance, and if necessity deemed it, he needed to know how to back his words up with the tenacity to hold his ground when threatened and the brutality to strike others down when they refused to cede.
All in all, it was a bit much for a young lad to shoulder, but he lived in tough times. By his reasoning, most adults knew better, and if they didn't, they could either fight their way out, or buy it. Kids like him—they were a swing case. Kids were small and fast and learned quick. They knew where to hide when things got messy and when to cry to turn the tables on a weak heart. For those that hadn't learned yet, Smoker found himself yanking them out of the fire from time to time. He didn't make it a habit of sticking his neck out—that was too dangerous. But he did what he could, when he could.
Others…they didn't have it so easy. For them, Smoker didn't mind putting out a little more effort.
"Where'd you even go?" he grunted, hands grubby as he pawed through the alley's loose trash. "I know you're back here."
In a world where so much felt out of their hands, too many people—kids and adults alike flexed their muscles over things they could control.
Smoker lifted the flap of an overturned cardboard box. "Hello…?"
Half-obscured in shadow, a small bristly form hissed angrily at him, little teeth bared.
He grinned wearily, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. "Okay, quit the theatrics. You know who I am." Taking a moment to dig into his bag, he pulled out a tin can and cracked the tab back, peeling the lid open. "See? I brought the good stuff."
When he held it out, the creature within the box hissed again, more softly than their first display. After a moment of hesitation, a furry head inched forward, ears flattened as its damp nose twitched, sniffing both Smoker's extended hand and the meal offered. Firelight eyes—neither truly yellow nor copper regarded him with trepidation, then, as he set the can down, the animal crawled out.
Dogs, so Smoker had learned, fared decently well, even when targeted by humans looking to make themselves feel better. Dogs were large—even when cornered and outnumbered, their furious snarls and deep rough barks could send even grown men scattering. Those advantages didn't always stop cruelty, but they curbed it.
Cats, even with claw and fang, were rarely as lucky. Judged as aloof and cold, folks turned them out more than they helped them. Smoker'd dirtied his bat more than once going after teens who'd boasted gruesome treatment of the neighborhoods feral population. It'd earned him a few bruises of his own, but to him, a few scratches didn't amount to shit if it meant some of their more vulnerable 'tenets' had less to bother them.
Today's welfare check had kept him on edge with worry for some time. A young thing, barely over a year old, she'd been one of the regulars lurking out back of his gram's bodega—curious enough to sneak up for a better look, but too wary to step inside. She'd gotten awfully round recently. What few adults he'd confided in reassured him nature was simply running its course. Smoker—who knew her with a limp, care of a shopkeeper who'd caught her with a stolen sliver of meat, found it upsetting. Tiny, slow, and pregnant—it kept him up at night, growling into his pillow as he listened to the bars let out well past midnight, their noisy drunkards expelled into the streets. He couldn't be thereallthe time.
But now here she was—alive, though to call her 'well' was debatable. Her limp more pronounced than ever, fur matted—he could only assume someone had taken another swing. As she drew nearer, her little head plowing into the can of food, his heart plummeted. Thin—she was thin again. His lip twitched, his hands sweaty, and throat tight.
"—It just you in there, lady?"
She paused long enough to regard him with a tired stare, then back down she went. Chomp, chomp, chomp.
He stayed crouched, legs aching from the angle, knees stinging where the raw asphalt dub against them. She emptied over half the tin. When she turned away, shuffling back into her box, his breath caught in his chest. Blood stained the white of her flank, half-blended in with the color patches of orange and black. Smoker didn't cry. He wasn't that kind of kid—he'd decided that a long time ago, but the sight carved deeply into him, rattling out tremors in his shoulders as a dozen worst-case scenarios unfolded through his thoughts. He doubled down, jaw clenched. No. He wouldn't. He couldn't.
And then she came back.
Clutched in her mouth, wriggling like a fat furry larva, was a kitten. It twisted in her hold and when deposited at Smoker's feet, it mewled uselessly, pitchy and sharp as she disappeared again. Staring down at it, he froze, stomach churning. The little one mewled on and on, squinting, its eyes shut tightly.
It was okay.
She brought a second. Then a third. A black, a grey, an orange—all helpless little noisebags. All damp fluff and stunted rudders for tails.
Fat tears slid down his cheeks as she plodded over, nudging each baby with a brief nuzzle and tidying lick before diving back in to finish her leftovers. He bawled in that alley, his face hot with relief as he struggled to empty his bag entirely. Who cared what was in it? Forgotten homework, a half-used workbook, a fistful of nails he hadn't driven into his bat yet—it all could go to hell. Shaken clean, he opened it wide and gently scooped up a kitten, carefully settling it within. One, two, three. Black and grey and orange all went in, peeping for their mother as he slipped the cross strap over his back, the bag itself pressed to his chest with the pull-tie at the top loose.
His voice shaky, he scrubbed his eyes dry on his shirtsleeve as he beckoned their mother close. "You're coming too, right?" He knew not to expect an answer. There were no fairy tales in Loguetown. But when he shifted to rise, though she recoiled at the movement, she didn't bolt. He took it as a sign.
By the time he returned to his gram's shop, Miss Patches, who had gouged a few fresh lines into his arms and neck on the way over in retaliation for being grabbed, had given up her fight by the time he walked through the door. He wove between brightly filled free-standing shelves and the occasional meandering cat underfoot, not bothering to knock on the door markedEmployees-Onlyas he left himself in.
"Gram!" he hollered, earning a dull jerk from the cat in his arms. "I'm back!"
An older woman, though not elderly, rose from a maze of half-unpackaged boxes, pushing aside a pile of inventory papers in her hands.
"Fantastic." She wore the grin of a sailor who'd been given shoreleave with a blank check. "Did you find—"
Smoker thrust the cat out and the woman stretched as far as she could over the leaning towers of boxes, scrambling to swaddle the poor thing up in her apron.
"Can't say you weren't ever effective." Though grateful for his help, she couldn't say with certainty she didn't worry about all his methodology when unsupervised. But by her reckoning, Smoker was a good kid, just a bit rough. "Seas, boy," the woman groaned, "What did you do to her?"
Smoker huffed, "Found her like that." Stepping over a crate of bagged potato chips, he widened the opening on his bag, tugging it wide to show his catch. "Found these too."
She nearly dropped both the mother cat, as well as her flagging cigarette. "—A haul! Twelve gods and seven sinners, that's a lot to handle."
He just grinned, proud of his work. Raking a hand back through her hair, she laid out a game plan.
"Okay, Smoker. I'm gonna get our new mama upstairs and get her cleaned up." Kicking her way through the back room, she upended a box of unused aprons, and snatching one up, tossed it to him. "Take that. Two or three or whatever you need— Doesn't matter. Dump a box of crap in here if you have to—" She pushed her way toward another door, yanking it open wide enough to squeeze through with a few tries. "Just get them a bed made and mind the register 'til i'm back." She winked, "Do that and I'll call it even for telling your parents earlier that I hadn't seen your scrawny ass today."
Still bleeding, he gave a boisterous salute as she hustled off. A kitten bed and a sore ass from manning the stool behind the counter? —that was easy. That he could do.
The bell hung above the front door jingled, heralding the arrival of a customer and Smoker hollered back with more intensity than most would anticipate from a ten year old— "JUST A MINUTE! STEAL ANYTHING AND I'LL BUST YOUR FINGERS!"
In no time at all, he strutted out with a new cardboard box in his arms, fresh, and dry, and lined with soft fabric for the itty bitty inhabitants within.
The customer—a man Smoker recognized as one who stopped in regularly for smokes and snacks peered over the counter as Smoker stowed the box safely beneath it. "Whatcha got there, kid?"
Ruddy-colored eyes narrowed as Smoker glared up at the fellow. "What are you, a cop? Ask any more questions and I won't give you gram's discount for having a fat ass."
Well aware that he'd been paying cheaply for the burden of having a nice butt, but unaware that the woman who owned the place had been gabbing about it, the man stumbled back and busied himself in a rotating rack of magazines. Pleased with the results of his actions, Smoker nodded to himself and hunkered back down to ensure he'd properly tucked the kittens in. All in a day's work, really.
