A Fairy's Tale (Eustass Kid & OC)

Chapter 15: That Night

Blood. Dripping off the knife. Pouring from her neck. On the floor, on the wall, on his skin.

In the water, in the water, in the water...

"Kid? Are you alright?"

Timid hands found their way to his shoulders, squeezing softly. He blinked, once, twice. The red was gone. She was gone, she wasn't coming back, he wasn't going back.

"Kid."

Killer's voice.

Killer was there, standing in the open doorway, one hand stalled on the frame as if he'd paused in the middle of entering. All his focus was on his captain.

Kid brushed off Loklynn's hands and stepped forward out of her reach. She tried to protest, but he shut her down with a glare because the little idiot didn't fucking know.

Killer knew.

"...I'll take over."

I'll take over. It wasn't quite a question, wasn't quite a statement. That was nothing new; Wherever Kid was concerned, Killer had a habit of using a tone that left the interpretation up to him. He advised and he cautioned, but he always left the final choice to Kid. He then supported those decision with all his strength and to the best of his ability. A true first mate, through and through.

Truth be told, Killer was his first mate years before they'd even decided to set sail.

Kid dropped the washcloth into Killer's proffered hand as he passed, exiting the bathroom without another word. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, resting his remaining hand on his pounding head. He didn't get migraines, but fucking hell, the bitch of a headache he had then had to be pretty damn close.

Eustass Kid was a man who reveled in horror. His existence was a blood stained hellscape, a road he walked proudly. He relished being known across the seas for his brutality, loved the way people would whisper and avert their eyes as he walked by.
He'd witnessed and committed atrocities that would make the bravest men weak in the knees without having a single lick of guilt or fear to show for it. Nothing he'd seen or done had ever bothered him. Nothing kept him from sleeping like a baby every night, drifting off with a smirk on his face. Nothing.

Almost nothing.

Of all the things he'd been through, there were only two events in his life that left him permanently scarred. The second and most recent one was the battle with Shanks, just a year ago, when he'd lost half of everything he owned. His crew knew how much that hurt. They shared his pain. They were there.

No one was there for his first scar.

Maybe that was part of what made the memory so painful. Killer was there to pick him up in the aftermath, like always, but when it happened... Kid was alone. He was just a Goddamn child. Just four years old, too young to truly understand what was happening and why.

He was old enough to know that she fed him, but too young to notice her struggle to do so. He was old enough to know how to say, 'I Love You,' but too young to understand why he wasn't allowed to say it.

He was too young to realize that she hadn't even given him a proper name. She simply called him what he was:

A kid.

Just a kid.
______________________________

Eighteen years ago...

Kid always had trouble sleeping. He was afraid to sleep, terrified of the nightmares that visited him, night after night, without fail, like clockwork. His young mind was a cage, his eyelids the bars to a prison he couldn't escape.