Ce que j’ai fait, ce soir-là

[mekachu04]

Kidd is a bit of a Schrödinger's cat in this bit; The rest of the KP crew have been rounded up by Shanks and Crew, but Kidd was not found.

---

Aimless little drabble. More of a character study. I dunno. Killer's head in is a bad place and he will do anything to keep his remain crew safe - even at the cost of his own sanity it seems.


Some SA is implied from Killer's time as Kazamo, and there is some crude moments where shanks wants to see how far KP crew will go to keep each other safe. was not sure how to tag that one.

---

wrote this when Shamrock was first revealed. wasn't sure where to go with it, so it's been sitting in my wips for months.


the original idea was what if Shamrock was Kidd's father. But that put him and shanks at 15, and while not impossible, is unlikely. So maybe Shamrock attacked Kutzk on the WG behalf later, orphaning Kidd instead of fathering him. Never did flesh that idea out, so just roll with it.

"Kid, I've never been to the South Blue -"

"- My captain is Kidd, my name is Killer."

"look, Killer - I've been all over the Grand Line and the Red Line, and spend quite a long time in the East Blue, but I was never in the South Blue." Shanks actually looks sympathetic as he looked over his prisoner, "I'm afraid you... I am afraid you have me mistaken for someone else."

The laughter was horrible, the sound of a man drowning, not a drop of mirth to be found. The realization that they've doomed themselves by chasing the wrong ghost.

Shanks gave the younger man a chance to exhaust himself back into some semblance of control, looking back at his own crew uneasy. He had no regrets with how he'd handled the Kidd Pirates up until this point, had found the captain's dogged pursuit of him to be highly amusing and almost flattering, right up to the point it put others in the line of fire.

To find out that fire was sparked by the cruelty of another man entirely soured the whole ordeal and left him almost pitting the survivors.

---

"Sail under my flag"

"My captain is Kidd"

"Kidd is dead"

"My captain is Kidd"

Shanks looked to the other men and women - the more reasonable ones he'd assumed, judging by their actions when he'd sunk their vessel. None would meet his gaze, their focus on the vice captain forced into a kneel at Shanks' feet.

"I could throw you back into the ocean?"

That got a reaction at least, the man lifting his battered face up to grin at him.

Always smiling. Always laughing. It twisted Shanks' stomach; the agony in his eyes with the cheer on his face.

"Please don't," called a voice from the assembled crew, "... Don't toy with him anymore."

He looked over their faces, looking for who spoke up, surprised to find the one to start begging one of the shortest of the members, a stocky man that wouldn't even reach Shanks' hip. He didn't blink, staring back.

"Kill us or don't.. just.. No more of these games."

"Told ya Monkey was wrong," another voice said, this time from the short woman next to the man, "A yonko is a yonko is a yonko. He's just another Kaido. Just another Orachi."

A few heads nodded, and Shanks.. well, he was a yonko, he's not sure what else they expected him to be? But being compared to Kaido stung, compared to Orachi was downright insulting, and maybe even worse... maybe even worse was the idea Luffy was out there, still putting him on pedestal.

---

In lue of Kidd, Shanks would need to keep Killer separated from the crew, kept somewhere more secure. Used each to keep the other in line. The problem was the wild look in the man's eyes when he did, the laughter... His crew looked at him with murder in their hearts - more so than he was sure any of his actions would warrant.

"Take any one of us instead," one of the taller men said finally, one of the two that had begged him for mercy as their ship burned around them. Their vice captain shook his head emphatically no, but did little more than laugh, no words able to slip past the wheezing fwafwafwa that echoed in the brig.

"What if I wanted to take one of the woman?" Shanks challenged, though coerced was not how he liked his bedfellows.

"Any of us," one of the girls offered, a desperation in her voice that chilled him, "Hell, we'll all go. We can make you very happy," she promised.

Ben had to grab their vice captain before Killer could harmed himself further after he slammed his own head into the floor as an attempt to get control over himself.

In turn, the men of the Kidd pirate crew looked ill at the thought, but not a single one of them protested.

They nearly rioted when he took their vice captain away any way.

---

His brig is full right now - not really designed to hold the entire surviving crew of the Kidd Pirates in its belly. Shanks' instead had the vice-captain drug up to his own quarters, his own first mate escorting the man himself, as Shanks' gave one last warning look to the assembled crew, turning heel and trying to ignore desperate calls for him to have mercy.

For the time being, Killer will be detained in Shanks' quarters, where Shanks' can keep an eye on him, and keep the man's crew on their best behavior.

What neither he or Ben are expecting is when he sighs, sinking down into the chair next to his desk, their captive starts to laugh again. Killer lurches toward Shanks, but instead of attacking, he drops to his knees before the other captain, cuffed hands on Shanks' knees.

A dark part of Shanks wanted to see how far the man would go.

Instead he grabbed a fist full of blond bangs, and forced Killer's head away from his crotch and turning to to look him dead in the eyes.

The laughter and tears had stopped, and though the man grinned, there was no one home in those eyes.

Shanks could hear Ben keeping himself busy elsewhere in the room. He's own thoughts scrambled to pivot, to restart the conversation to one he had control over. 

"Your crew mentioned Kaido. I was under the impression your little alliance was more then content to kneel to him until Mugiwara and Trafalgar showed up?"

"My captain is Kidd."

Shanks frowned. Ben paused in his shuffling to look over curiously. 

Killer seemed to latch on to this, repeating... "My Captain. My captain is Kidd."

Shanks shoved the man away to the 'bed' Ben had made for him, and stalked out of his own room, trying not to dwell on the interaction.

---

Killer is exhausted, slumped boneless to the side, but he does not sleep.

By the third day, Shanks knows there is something terribly wrong with the man, and he summoned on other the other 'commander's as they're called. Not the tall one, but the one who spit fire at him when he'd first taken their vice captain away.

The man is escorted into the room, the pleading desperate man gone in lue of a man seething in anger.

Shanks regard him quietly. The man says nothing back, but the hatred is palatable.

Finally, Shanks gestured to the body wasting away in the corner of his quarters. Heat does not turn his back to Shanks, never looks way for more then the time it takes to blink, skirting the room to his crew-mate's side.

"Killer-san?" he whispered. The man does not move, not until Heat hoists him upright, glancing uncertainly at his face.

Killer's lips are bloody from where he's been biting them to keep quiet, and he's tired and sickly, but no harm has been inflicted upon him at Shanks' hand.

His voice is like a child's, cracking as he called Heat's name, and the men embraced.

Shanks gives them their moment, as they touch and check each other over for new injuries, moving to sit causally at his desk across the room.

He's not the only one taken by surprise when Killer rises abruptly, trying to hid Heat's much taller frame behind his own body, keeping himself between Shanks and his crew.

"Please don't," the man begs, "I will do what you bid of me, please. I will obey. Please don't Shanks-dono -"

Heat, unable to move past his vice captain, at least holds on tight to him; the look on his own face is pinched with worry and fear. He shakes his head no, pleadingly, at Shanks.

Its' a far cry from the man he's 'hosted' the last few days.

"What will you obey, young Killer?"

"I am your servant," the man parrots, but who, Shanks doesn't know, "What my lord wishes, I shall do. Whatever task my lord commands, I will perform."

There's a desperation in his words, and Heat is speaking too, "Please, please, no more games, Emperor Shanks."

But Shanks needs so see something.

"Kneel."

And to his private horror, Killer drops. Not just to a kneel, but a bow, forehead pressed to the wood, hands flat to the floor in front of him, fingertips together.

"Kiss my boot."

Heat looks like he will murder Shanks with his own hands as his vice-captain crawls forward to do so.

"Suck my cock."

Killer's hands remain affixed to the floor, but he raises his head, mouth open, and Shanks stops it there, twisting a hand in ragged blond hair much the same way as the first night.

Shanks looks at Heat, who will kill him without hesitation, should he be given just a chance.

"Swear fidelity to me." he says, but his focus is on Heat.

Heat, who, without a beat, firmly states, "My captain is Kidd."

Here Killer pauses, teeth biting into his lip once again, jaw working like he wants to say something. He's starting to giggle again. Fresh blood drips down his chin, clinging to his goatee.

Shanks look back to Heat, who has lowered his head, shoulders slumped.

"Swear fidelity to me, and your crew goes free."

Killer looks like he might say something, but Heat repeats, "My captain is Kidd" and Killer says nothing.

"Swear fidelity to me, or I will kill this man."

"We all die," Heat says to that, "and I will not die an oath breaker. My captain is Kidd, and I will not follow a pathetic man who can not acquire loyalty without threats."

Ben is hovering at Shanks' shoulder, but Heat does not back down. Such a difference in the man who once begged him for mercy.

"I wasn't asking you." Shanks remarks, "but I do want to know, what does Killer say to all that?"

"My captain is Kidd."

---

Shanks does not order Heat's execution, much to the befuddlement of both captured men.

He also lets Heat take Killer back with him to the brig, watches the crew close ranks around their returned vice captain.

They all eye him with suspension, which he has earned, but the taller of the commander - Wire - does bow his head. "Thank you." And he sounds like he means it.

They are still prisoners, still regarded with wariness and suspicion. But Shanks' can feel the undercurrent of gratefulness at the simple gesture of reuniting the Supernova to his crew.

Now to figure out what he's going to do with the lot of them...