Chapter Text
I barge through my apartment door, barely bothering to kick it shut behind me before trudging up the hallway.
I unceremoniously drop my keys on the kitchen bench, before I can stop myself my body follows suit.
I drape myself over the benchtop and lie there for a few seconds, relaxing my muscles, letting my thoughts slow, and letting the day’s stress bleed from my bones. I most likely would have fallen asleep there if not for a stomach growl loudly breaking the silence.
Heaving myself off the bench, I grip the back of my collar and slip out of my bright red and yellow lifeguard uniform, throwing the shirt to some shadowy corner where it can’t assault my eyes any longer.
I stumble through my small kitchen, grabbing the last packet of instant ramen from the counter and a pot, making sure to clash it around a bit more than necessary as I fill it in the sink to break the unnerving silence of the apartment. I’ve never really liked quiet.
I debate facetiming my brother as I turn on the gas stove, but eventually decide against it. He owns a company now, there’s probably more important stuff to do than listen to me incessantly yap about irrelevant bullshit to distract from the fact I feel utterly alone.
I drum the beat of Bohemian Rhapsody against the countertop as I wait; six minutes is the exact time my pot takes to boil.
When did this become my routine?
It’s there, standing shirtless and half asleep over a pot of instant ramen, that I have a reality shattering realisation.
I fucking hate my life.
I fucking hate waking up every day and knowing exactly what’s going to happen before I leave my bed. I fucking hate the fact I will soon have to get an office job just to afford my shitty little two-room apartment. I fucking hate the fact my life is turning into everything I promised myself it wouldn’t be when I was a child.
I fucking hate the fact I’m turning into my father.
Without really thinking I pick a few noodles from the pot with a pair of chopsticks, holding it over the open flame. I let them catch fire and fully burn up before I tilt my head back and attempt something I swore off at the ripe age of nine when it did not result in a real life lightsaber for my birthday.
I close my eyes and I pray.
Please take me far, far, away from here. Away from this world, away from this life. Please. Take anything you want. My body, my mind, fuck- you can have my soul if it means I don’t have to be miserable anymore.
I want to be free. I want to explore. I want to laugh again.
Please.
I quickly step back as the stove emits a sudden sizzling noise, I feel something drip onto my chest and look down to realise it’s a tear. I’m too exhausted to be embarrassed or care in the slightest, instead, I just brush the droplets off and continue cooking.
Some distant part of my brain wonders if some deity would actually accept slightly charred, tormented human tears mixed with 80c ramen as an offering. In my defence, I’m a broke eighteen year old who’s one minor inconvenience away from either enlisting or dropping off the face of the earth; tears and instant noodles are the only mortal possessions I have to offer.
Everything after that blurs together. I go to turn off the gas, suddenly I’m standing between the kitchen and my couch, a frying pan full of ramen in one hand and a bottle of sleeping pills in the other. I have been getting pretty shit sleep the past few days, and my mind isn’t even close to tired. It was starting to look like one of those nights.
I sigh, putting the bottle back on the kitchen counter and crossing my apartment to my tiny balcony. What’s another sleepless night? There’s certainly worse things than staying awake a few extra hours.
(Sleep paralysis.)
(I fucking hate sleep paralysis.)
I shut the sliding door behind me, sitting cross-legged on the cold concrete and looking up at the stars.
Regulus is bright. It must be around March . I note, devouring my noodles at inhuman speeds.
Somewhere along the line I finish eating and settle back against the door, taking in the twinkling bright lights.
Normally I’d get a canvas, maybe try to paint, but not tonight. Tonight I just sit still and mentally document the constellations for the thousandth time before my eyes start to miraculously drift shut on their own. The last sensation that computes to my brain is the corners of my mouth tipping into a grin.
As soon as my vision is fully dark, a feeling akin to white noise takes over my body, dulling my senses and filling my bones with a tingling sensation, it confuses my mind to the point I can’t tell whether I’m sitting, standing or floating.
And then my vision turns rainbow. The explosion of colour happens so abruptly I’m half convinced I’m having a stroke.
The colours are kaleidoscopic, rippling, swirling and bleeding into each other, twisting into some whirlwind tapestry of my memories.
With each burst of colour I focus on, flashes of moments past are wrenched to the front of my mind, like snippets stolen from another life. With each colour comes a ghost of a conversation that echoes through my head.
Milky blue, moving slow, like honey. Picnics and meadows, the afternoon sun peeking through leafy canopies. Homemade bento boxes, the fleeting warmth of my mother’s embrace.
“ You’ve got such a good heart, little one. But I worry for you. The world can be cruel, sometimes people aren’t what they seem. No matter what, never let anyone change you.”
Raven blue, biting like cold night air. Midnight hand-to-hand fights, sneaking from the house, anxiety nibbling at my gut, sore joints, my brother’s whooping celebrations breaking the peace of the night.
“Mama said we come from warriors! C’mon, go another round, it’s in our blood! I’ll go a little easier on you this time, promise.”
Dark purple, cracked and peeling. Abandoned train tracks, bandana snug over my nose, my only best friend at my side, the sharp smell of spray paint, ring-clad fingers laced through mine, a train carriage adorned with constellations.
“You’ve always been the dreamer, you’ve got enough ambition for two lifetimes. I kinda thought you could live out mine for me. … I don’t think I can live like this much longer.”
Stark white, stiff and unmoving. Hospital rooms, constant high pitched beeping, quietly sobbing in identical hallways, my mum’s bright face and brighter smile now pale and weak, a too-formal phone call, funeral planning, too many condolences to count, something sharp poking at my collarbones.
It takes me much longer than it should to realise the prodding sensation isn’t a part of whatever possible epilepsy / colour induced PTSD attack I’m having. Naturally, not wanting to see the rest of my memories (all downhill from here) I grab onto the feeling like a fucking lifeline, and I tug .
I bolt upright, my eyes flying open. A bird wearing a cap, previously nibbling my clavicle, falls into my lap. We stare at each other for a second.
“Sup?”
It squawks in my face and flies away. As I watch it go, I lock onto the brown pouch it’s carrying around its neck, and rolls of paper in another pouch under its wing.
Maybe my uncle was right about the whole bird/government drone thing after all.
I don’t let that thought linger for too long, staggering to my feet to take in the deserted shore around me. The second my brain actually takes in my surroundings I almost go into cardiac arrest on the spot, because this is not where I went to sleep. Fuck, I can’t even see my apartment complex.
Instead of the usual view of the decaying roofs of all the rundown buildings in my city, I’m greeted by crashing waves. Standing in the middle of a sandy beach, on the crumpled fabric of a flag, the tide lapping at my boots, I am so very fucking confused.
The salty breeze rolls off the waves, sweeping over bare skin, ruffling my bangs and blowing black strands from my neck. I glance down at the thin fabric beneath me, saving me from the sand trying to swallow my combat boots.
It’s black, about as large as a beach towel, the feature that really sticks out is the white skull and crossbones proudly emblazoned in the centre. A red circle has been slapped in the middle of the skull, just below the eyes, which have both a diagonal and horizontal line through each.
I scoff. “No goddamn way.”
The beach, the pirate flag, the weird ass bird, my prayer, it all clicks.
Away from this world.
I want to be free.
I want to explore.
I want to laugh again.
Free. Explore. Laugh.
Whatever god answered me had hit the nail on the goddamn head, but for fuck’s sake, they could have at least given me a power buff. Or like, three wishes or something. I don’t know how gods work.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, hands snaking their way behind my head as I pace back and forth. “No, no no no no. Absolutely not. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m gonna die. I’m actually going to fucking die.”
And just like that, I’m furious. My prayer was answered. Cool, amazing, life-changing, even. But this is not a blessing, just an execution with extra steps.
I march up to the edge of the shore, seafoam pools around my combat boots. I level a glare at the crashing waves and scream my fucking lungs out.
“Are you shitting me?! You could’ve just killed me back home, I probably would have thanked you! What the fuck is this ?! When I said explore I meant, like, a cool abandoned place, not the grand fucking line ! Is this because I set the IRS on the shithead next door?! Listen, I’m sorry and all, but how the fuck am I supposed to love thy neighbour if he consistently rages at fucking Valorant at unholy hours of the morning?!”
My chest heaves as I come down from the rant. For a solid minute I stand there like an idiot staring at the surf, nothing happens.
I huff and retreat, dumping myself on the flag. “Dickhead.” I grumble under my breath.
A bird flying over me shits in my lap.
That’s all it takes for my last string of sanity snap. For a good five minutes I stare at the crashing surf, no thoughts going through my head until I’ve calmed down enough to realise that for the first time in my life, I’m free. I have feasible dreams, and the drive to achieve them. I have enough ambition for two lifetimes after all. But most importantly, I’m not home. Good enough for me.
With a foreign genuine hope for my future, I begin happily taking inventory, searching through the pockets of my black cargo pants. They’re stuffed with essentials or whichever items hadn’t permanently held my attention, accumulated over the past two days.
My hip pockets only hold one thing: A My Little Pony wallet containing fifteen dollars in bills and twenty seven in coins, a folded and worn Polaroid of my brother and I when we were kids, a maxed out credit card stolen from my father, and a Legoland driver's licence.
Unsurprisingly disappointed, I search through the rest of my pockets.
My lifeguard whistle, my favourite lighter, one of those pink pom pom pens, a butterfly knife I bedazzled while high off my fucking brain, and a takeaway container of hot chips my favourite sketchy line cook snuck into my pocket before I left work.
I’ve taken everything out of my pockets, re-organized, put them back, and am halfway through devouring the stone cold chips and grappling with the fact that these are now my prized possessions when I hear a whiny growl from beside me. I slowly turn my head to face the source of the noise.
A whole ass green motherfucking lion stares back at me. And my first instinct is to jerk my chips away from him.
He shuts his drooling mouth, rearing his head back to stare at me in a highly offended manner.
“No bitch.” I say through my very full mouth. “There’s a whole world full of baby deer to terrorise. Go on.” I wave a hand at him dismissively.
He squints, gives me an extremely judgemental once over, then mutters the sassiest “Ruh roh.” I’ve ever bore witness to.
“Well ex-fucking- scuse me if I don’t want to forfeit my mortal possessions to a cuntier version of scooby doo. Aren’t you meant to be king of the beasts? What, getting your life narrated by David Attenborough and being hunted by rich white guys on bonding trips got boring?”
The low growl that comes from his throat has every cell in my body screaming at me to run. His shadow slowly engulfs me as the lion draws himself up to full height, glaring down his nose at me.
I swallow. “Hey, so, that was totally my bad. You’re very scary. Very kingly. I mean, we can share the chips if you really want, only if you could pretty please not bisect me-”
The lion lunges forward, turning his head and clamping his jaws around my torso. The scream that escapes my mouth is much more high pitched and shrill than I would care to admit. It slowly tapers off as I realise his teeth aren’t piercing into my skin, if anything his hold is deliberately gentle.
The lion lifts me into the air, shaking me around like a ragdoll for a solid minute for reasons totally unknown to me, then he turns and begins to trot inland, I crane my neck to stare longingly at my chips lying scattered on the beach.
The first few minutes are smooth sailing, the island seems to be barren. As buildings come into view I begin to get uneasy. I have a small-scale anxiety attack as I’m taken through a town that looks like it’s been obliterated by a small army of coked up teenagers with impact grenades. There’s no pattern to the destruction, and frankly the placement is shite.
( Who even blows up a tyre swing? Genuinely, what villainous bitch is taking time out of their day to destroy some poor kid’s tyre swing? )
By the time I spot the very same pirate flag from the beach flying proudly above a bar, I’m beating my fists against the lion’s nose. As the finer details of the flag come into view I’m trying to strike a deal with him to let me the fuck go. When I identify just who the jolly roger belongs to I’ve gone limp and started praying to the very same god I was cursing out mere minutes ago.
The lion deposits me on the ground in a heap. (Don’t ask me how he got to the bar’s roof, I was having a crisis.) I take one look at the makeshift throne and the man sitting in it, obscured by shadows, and I screw my eyes shut as tightly as possible and clasp my hands together.
“Please don’t be the Netflix version, please don’t be the Netflix version, please don’t be the Netflix version.” I murmur. Because yeah, he’s hot, but fuck if he isn’t the most deranged out of the three and I’m not trying to get sliced into Slim Jims at 11: 24 on a tuesday night.
I hold my breath for a few seconds, it seems like the crew is doing it too, but after a minute of silence and zero movement I’m almost not sure what to do with myself.
I properly look at my surroundings for the first time, taking in one extremely moody, eyeliner and stripy scarf wearing dude to the left of the captain's chair, and a random ass mime to my right. I’m sensing a theme here.
“Er, Bonjour?”
…
“The fuck?” Someone at the back of the crowd helpfully speaks up.
“ Not French, thank god! ” I deflate, placing a hand over my heart. “Holy shit, I thought you were all gonna force me into a wine tasting then tag team me with baguettes. Or, like, whatever else French people do for fun. I dunno, haven't been. Apparently it smells like it’s been fumigated with piss soaked cigarette smoke. But-”
A throwing dagger shoots out of the shadows, effectively shutting me up and sinking into the ground just in front of me, I stare at the vibrating hilt for a few seconds before dragging my gaze up.
The man in the chair leans forward, resting his head lazily on his palm and allowing the moonlight to illuminate his features. An orange pirate hat, fur-lined captain's coat, a large red nose, and-
“Dude your hair is majestic as fuck.” I blurt. “Like, if I was a L’Oréal scouter I’d be aggressively hard right now.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, and accepts it with a shrug. “Alright. Just who the fuck are you?”
It’s not the same voice I would’ve expected out of his mouth. Hell, it’s not even the same language. And the fact this didn’t even cross my mind before makes it a hundred times worse because my maternal cousins were right. My mind has been colonised by the Europeans.
My cracker ass has been away from the motherland for so long I’m hearing this in the fucking English dub.
“My great grandpa did not survive a nuclear bomb for this.” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Speak up or lose your tongue.” Buggy says sharply.
“I’d like to be your apprentice.” I shoot back, flashing him a toothy grin.
At that everyone present lets loose some sort of ridiculous laugh. Which is actually insane to me, if I laughed by fully articulating the words ‘juggle juggle juggle’ I don’t think anything would be funny ever again.
“You want to be my apprentice?” Buggy repeats, eliciting another round of deranged laughs. “Alright Scruffy, whaddaya bring to the table?” He leans forward lazily, an amused grin hanging from his lips.
No way shit’s that easy.
“I mean, you want my whole resume? Fuck, um, alright. I’m a lifeguard, I did gymnastics for a few years,” I tick them off on my fingers. “I was a bartender for a little while but I got fired for “encouraging too many bar fights” fucken’ Michael, little snitch, his bitchass probably has wet dreams about beige windowless rooms. Um.. oh! I can identify and name any star in the sky. I also worked as a cashier at McDonalds for my first job so I can deal with literally any annoying prick with a superiority complex that the universe throws at me. And I can do a backflip.”
I belatedly notice the dagger he’s lazily flipping between his fingers. “You are vastly overestimating my tolerance for loudmouthed brats. Talk, and do it quickly.”
“Bombs.” I summarise.
“Bombs?” Buggy literally detaches an eyebrow from his face to raise it condescending high. “I think we’ve got enough of those, brat.”
“Yeah, you do. Which is why I need to learn. I mean, I’m half decent at chemistry and had unmonitored access to Reddit as a kid, so, I know stuff. But I need an edge. A tip. Maybe a few tips if you’re down with that. An experienced hand to stroke my genius, if you will. A-”
He abruptly stands from his chair, my mouth clicks shut of its own accord. Probably saving my life in the process.
“So you get a mentor.” He descends the steps menacingly, “But what do I get out of it.” He pulls a dagger seemingly out of thin fucking air, dragging it down my jaw.
Why is this kinda hot?
I shake myself out of it. “Er- Legacy? That’s what apprentices do, right? Carry on your legacy?”
His face darkens. “No. Apprentices learn from their mentor’s mistakes and use what few skills they managed to learn off pure observation to keep themselves alive and running from said legacy. Carrying on a pirate’s memory is a fucking curse. Is that what you want, Scruffy?”
I blink at him. He scoffs and swiftly rises to his feet, turning away in the same motion so I literally get a taste of his captain's coat.
“If you want to ride someone’s coattails go find some reckless jackass with a fuckin’ generational straw hat. Those fuckers ‘re too soft to not take you in.”
And then I feel like slamming my head through the fucking concrete because he was an apprentice, of the king of the pirates no less, and that ended famously shitilly and I completely fucking forgot .
Lucky for me, I needn’t worry about such things because a new tactic pops into my head fully formulated. After all, the kids in primary school used to call me ‘That big lying liar who lies all the time.’ for a reason.
Oh, how I mourn for honest people without ADHD.
“ Okay . Fuck, fine. I-” I force a choked sob from my throat, channeling my inner theatre kid as I fix my eyes on the ground in front of me. “You want the whole truth? Fine. My dad was an alcoholic prick who threw me out before I was a teenager. I was found by a pirate crew who abused the shit out of me until two days ago, I managed to smuggle a few pounds of C4 onto the ship. Blew the fucker up, and I floated at sea for a few days before ending up here. I don’t know-... I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”
Take the bait, take the bait. For the love of fuck, please take the bait .
Lion tamer frowns at me. “You’re a kid. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean nearly as much when I have nowhere to return.”
Fucking yes! I nailed that so fucking bad. Oh my god that was a good sob story.
Buggy surveys me with the thoroughness of border security. “Fine. I’ll take you as an apprentice. But so much as one more dick joke and you’re getting blown off the island. By blown I mean- DO NOT!”
I shut my mouth, unsuccessfully trying to wipe the smirk from my face.
“I mean you’re getting a metric ton of pure uranium up your ass, got it?” He finishes.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Buggy’s eye twitches, I quickly clear my throat. “I mean, I got it. Capitan.”
“Good.” He addresses his crew, “Now, whaddaya say we have a party in honour of our newest crewmate?”
They all cheer. Before I can even comprehend what’s happening barrels of alcohol have been rolled out and some have started entertaining, fire breathing, juggling, and all kinds of random cool shit. Arms sling around my shoulders, knuckles ruffle my hair, laughter crowds my ears from all sides. It’s undoubtedly the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
After a few hours of partying and the crew hyping me into multiple reverse keg stands, I genuinely start to believe my liver is going to give out. I tell someone so, they scoff and drape my arm around their shoulders, they tell me something about a bedroom and begin to lead me away from everyone else.
About halfway there I regain some of my senses. I force my gaze from the stars, lolling my head around to face the person half-carrying me, it takes a second but I belatedly place him as the stripy scarf emo, one of Buggy’s top officers.
“Oh hey. It’s just you. That’s okay. You seem okay.” I lay my head on his shoulder, he scoffs but doesn’t push me away. “Hey, I have a question.”
“Yeah, kid?”
“I’m not really er- down with holding towns hostage, y’know? Couldn’t we just, I don't know, let them go?”
Scarf guy just laughs, patting me on the shoulder as he opens the door to my quarters, shoving me inside and firmly shutting the door behind me. I can hear his retreating steps and chuckling through the wood.
It’s a plain bedroom. Bare walls, a single bed pushed against the opposite wall, a bedside table, wooden desk to my right, tiny wardrobe, a lantern bathing the walls in warm golden light.
“Skunk highlight cunt thinking he’s hard with vague fuckin’ answers.” I mumble, crossing the room to kick my bedpost, fully throwing myself onto the mattress a few seconds later.
It takes about ten minutes of staring at the ceiling and restlessly adjusting myself before I accept the fact I won’t be sleeping tonight. After all, I had the best rest of my fucking life a few hours ago, I can cut my losses.
I sit up, eyes darting around my room before finally landing on the bright stars outside my window. I jump up so quickly my head starts to spin, I end up stumbling over in a wonky ass beeline. On the way past I open a draw of the wardrobe, snatching a shirtsleeve dark green buttoned shirt. I slip the sleeves over my shoulders, leaving the front undone, not arsed to pointlessly fuck with the buttons.
I force the glass pane up, swinging my legs over the ledge and hoisting myself up to balance on the windowsill. I register a drainpipe to my right, I grab onto the cold metal and swing myself over. I do all of this on pure muscle memory, my eyes shut tight as if that’ll block it out to make me feel less queasy.
It must work to some degree because I scale it in about ten seconds, the entire time mentally spewing fuck yous to my father. Who, for a vast period of time, made it his life’s mission to make me quit gymnastics, knowing full well the whole reason I started was to get that exact rise out of him.
I tiptoe across the slanted roof, doing a cartwheel as my final act of defiance, before banishing my father to the very back of my mind, overjoyed at the prospect of never having to think about him again.
I flop onto my back, ignoring how it punches the air from my lungs. I slide a couple of metres down the tiles until the heels of my boots rest comfortably against the eaves. It takes a few seconds to get myself comfortable before looking up at the stars, and what a fucking sight it is.
My breath catches in my throat as I take in the unpolluted night sky for the very first time. Unaffected by the glow of city lights, the heavens are laid out before me like a swirling river of diamond shards, I can almost feel it all bearing down on me, pressing me into the rough stone.
The stars’ arrangements are uncanny, the feeling of familiarity that used to settle in my chest when I lay beneath them back home is nowhere to be found, no imaginary lines connect themselves between the glimmering pinpricks, and for the life of me I cannot recognize a single star.
It’s almost like an empty canvas, ready for me to draw the lines and create the stories. The large grin that pulls on my lips near threatens to split my face in half.
I’ve been given a second chance at life and I refuse to waste it. I will travel the high seas and etch my legacy into the sky. Buckle in fuckers, I’m in for the long haul.