10. Grief - PLEASE MIND WARNINGS

10. Grief - PLEASE MIND WARNINGS

>abridged post with soft art<

Kidd in memory - 8 | Killer in memory- 12

Kidd in present day- 23 | Killer in present day- 27

Tags specifically for this chapter:

Children in danger

Physical & Sexual Assault

on a minor!

Older boys try to kill Killer

Kidd reflects on it as an adult

Read at A03 linked above or here below cut

Drabbles from Pocket Jack's KiKi-tober Prompt list

Killer's passed out on his bed - hair loosely braided back, mask and shoes off, but otherwise fully dressed. He's on his side, arms crossed awkwardly, left hand curled over his right shoulder, right hand tucked under his cheek like it was meant to do the same but didn't quite make it, face wedged into the v of his wrists, bangs brushing his knuckles.

Kidd dimmed the room lamp before stripping off his own coat and boots, tossing his googles on the desk next to Killer's helmet. A shower would probably be a better idea, he thought, stripping off his vest and unbelting his kilt, looking over his partner. Killer slumbered on, clearly exhausted. Kidd crawled into bed behind him, shushing the sleepy mumble voiced by Killer.

He reached around the man, fingers slotting in to Killer's on his left hand, pulling it away from where he'd shoved it into his own face. Killer whined a disagreement, but calmed when Kidd pressed his forehead into the exposed crook, propping his head up on his left stump. Their entwined hand was tucked up next to Killer's right, and Kidd sighed into Killer's shoulder, wedging his knee between Killer's until he shifted finally and Kidd slid his leg in, pulling his partner back into him.

Kidd could feel the exact moment Killer's subconscious caught up to it being him and all the tension in Killer eased out, the man going slack and boneless in his embrace. His breathing deepened not too long after and Killer slid into dreamland.

It had taken Kidd years to finally be strong enough to be the 'big spoon.' Years before he was powerful enough to keep them both safe from the things that went bump in the night. Until then, they'd depended on Killer to keep them safe.

Kidd still had nightmares about one night when he was small - maybe 9 at the oldest - the house they'd been squatting in during the rainy season had been broken into by a group of older boys. Killer had set them up to sleep in the kitchen, had always kept them in back rooms on the first floor, away from doors but close to windows. Killer'd woken that night first but realized that by the time he was hoisting Kidd up on the counter and opening the window, they wouldn't have enough time to get away

He'd only had enough precious moments to get Kidd crawling into cabinets next to the sink to hide instead before the group of teen boys had stumbled in.

There'd been no time for Killer to hide too, and while he had fought back, in the end, he'd been too small and weak against the group. Kidd had watched from a gap in the cabinets, had watched them beat and torture his friend for hours, kept sequestered away only by Killer's pleading silent look, begging him to stay hidden when he thought it safe to look in Kidd's direction.

He'd nearly been discovered when one of their tormentors had made a cruel joke about how filthy Killer was, still pinned under them on the broken tile floor. One of the boys started rooting through the cabinets for something afterwards, Kidd frozen in terror as they searched closer and closer to his spot. Killer - exhausted and brutalized - redoubled his efforts to get free.

They'd found a collection of discarded cleaning items under the sink - just one tiny cabinet wall away from Kidd. They'd dumped the bleach on Killer; who'd screamed when it hit his face, getting one arm free to try and protect himself, only for the rest of the bottle to be upended on him anyway.

Kidd internalized every cruelty inflicted on Killer that night, as those boys burned, tortured and raped his friend in front of him for hours. Kidd would grow up to be a cruel man with little mercy to those in his way. But he would have hard set limits on the violence he begot onto others, and the things he watched Killer suffer from that night all means he could not bring himself to inflict on others.

While Killer slept easy in his arms, Kidd felt his thoughts continue to drift to that night, his thumb rubbing Killer's jaw. Once they were done, one of the boys had taken his belt, and tied it around Killer's thin neck, tightening it until the little metal prong caught in its smallest setting, leaving Killer jerking and spasming under him as the others had laughed. The one with the belt had sat on Killer's chest as he'd strangled the pre-teen, watching his eyes bulge and face darken and purple. Kidd watched as they waited for Killer to stop moving, watched him die under them.

Then they left him laying there in a puddle of filth and bleach on the kitchen floor of some backstreet dilapidated home as they wandered off to pillage the rest of the house, to barricade themselves in some room upstairs to shoot up or whatever had drawn them to the building in the first place. Leaving Kidd to sit in the dark with a corpse.

He's still there, some nights, waking up in the dark, the walls of the cabinets closing in around him, blood and cleaning solution filling his nose, Killer's small child body left abandoned. He'd find Victoria in a similar manner years later. The men who'd killed her actually tried to hide her body. They'd just left Killer discarded out in the open.

There'd been nothing he could do to save Victoria. In his dreams - he can't save Killer either. In reality, once Kidd was sure the boys were done with this room, he'd quietly crawled back out of the hidey-hole Killer had stuffed him in. The window over the sink lead to the back ally, and he'd drug Killer's body out that window, hauling him on his back, and dragging, carrying him down the dark crumbling cobblestone, blinded by his own snot and tears and the heavy summer rain.

Kidd had run until his legs gave out, leaving him sitting in the downpour sobbing, Killer's body still draped over him. He'd finally pulled Killer into his lap, blood on his face and thighs slowly tricking away under the rain. Kidd believed his world had ended and he wept. The rain had nearly drowned out the single clue to Killer's fate; Kidd's dreams are haunted by what would have been if he missed that soft struggling wheeze. That desperate gasping of air as Killer tried still to draw air past the belt.

Kidd had lain him out quickly on the soaked ground, ear pressed to Killer's lips in hopes he hadn't imagined the noise, only to hear it again. His tiny hands had scrambled at the belt; he'd have to tighten it to unwedge the little metal pin in the belt hole, and he listened carefully for the moment Killer attempted another breath. As soon as the horrid wheezing noise was heard, Killer's lungs filling with what little air he could get, Kidd pulled the belt tight, desperately fumbling with the thin pin to release it.

He was so sure he'd kill Killer fiddling with it in the rain, unable to get to free when finally it -twisted- under his hands, and Kidd was pulling the leather away. Killer would wear the thick wide bruising for weeks after and a lifetime of trauma with anything closed around his neck or even the leather that became the trademark of Kidd's crew in later years. He lay hiccuping gasping gulps of air under Kidd in the rain, colour in his face almost immediately fading, eyes fluttering open for just the briefest moment before drifting close. Before drifting still and limp once again.

Kidd sat over him, belt in hand, rain beating down on them both. Killer lay panting in his lap for a long moment, before he clutched at Kidd's shaking hand with his own broken one. Pulled it close to him like Kidd held him now, years later, across the world.

Killer slept soundly in his arms tonight, decade and some change removed from the night Kidd had dragged Killer and himself under an outcropping of trash to try and stay dry. At some point, Killer had lost one of his shoes, his pants tangled in his remaining one. Kidd had redressed him, clothes brittle and spotty form the bleach, using the belt meant to take his life to put him into rights when the broken seams prevented his pants from staying on correctly. It would be the first night Kidd would stay wake to greet the sun, protectively curled around his only friend, teeth bared at every creak in the dark.

He'd drift tonight, but never fully sleep, never did when he was alone, and certainly never did when Killer was in his arms. Before Kaido and Wano, as long as he knew either Wire or Heat were on watch, he would have slept soundly on the Punk since they'd hit the Grand Line. Not anymore. He inhaled sharply though his nose, the smell of his partner soothing his nerves as the memories of the night as a child overlayed with the day he followed the haunting distressed cackles across cold fields to find his partner bound and bleeding and dragged and stumbling behind a horse drawn cart. Pawns of Orachi and Kaido tormenting Killer, the faces of the boys of Kutsukku overlapping their features.

Kidd glanced at the heavy door of his quarters, picturing the ship that lay on the other side. Picturing the crew sleeping below deck in gently swaying hammocks, the night owls in the galley quietly idling away the hours. Of Heat settling in for his turn at watch, Wire resting for a few more hours before he would replace him. Kidd tightened around Killer, heels hooking around Killer's calves and pulling closer, causing the man to left out a sleepy chuckle and a soft sigh. Killer slept on. Kidd kept watch all the same.