Chapter 8: Stolen Tangerines
The situation in the city was going south faster than expected, and that was a roadblock to their plans. Diamante had reported back the alarming discovery that many of the local riffraff had already been arrested, or executed for resisting arrest, in ambushes on criminal gathering places like the one Doffy and Vergo had been mixed up in.
Trebol didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He was concerned that soon the noose would be coming to dangle around their necks, and he damned well wasn’t going to wait for it.
At the docks, Trebol supervised the others as they quickly loaded the money, and everything they had that was reasonably portable onto the same little ship that’d sailed here in from Downs. It was a miracle, he thought, that it hadn’t been seized yet. Thank all that was unholy that he had been shrewd enough to make certain that all of their dealings with the dockmaster had been above board and generously tipped.
Still, the anxiety of it tickled the back of his throat, and sent him into a coughing fit into his handkerchief.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked over, kerchief still covering his mouth. Diamante had stopped beside him, a bunch of their furniture rolled up like parchment and carried under his shoulder.
“You gonna be alright there, Tre? You seem awful on edge.”
Trebol took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped his face, tucking his handkerchief away. “Hey, hey can you blame me? This is a mess, Dia. It’s a good thing Doffy was at the pub the other night or we might not have even seen this coming.”
“Fair point,” Dia nodded, squeezing his shoulder. “But hey, they were, and we’re getting out of here. Good reason to go mobile, isn’t it? Like Doffy was saying. Get ourselves a big fuckoff pirate ship so it’s easy to run or fight.”
“I admit the prospect seems more attractive now than it did several days ago,” Trebol drawled, sniffing. “And I have some thoughts about it.”
“Yeah? What’s the plan, anyway? I know you. You have one.”
“Of course I do. I told you about the island we’re sailing to, Morey Pier?”
“It’s the one with the canning factory, right?”
George Watts (or Watts George, depending on what part of the Great Blue Sea you were from) was the sole owner of the island of Morey Pier, of the factory that dominated it, and in his opinion— of the people who worked there and populated the stinking little company town that served to house them.
There were around 400 or so of them at last count, most of whom were men living in barracks style communal housing, and sending money to their families on their home islands. The six shift foremen had individual houses and a couple of them, George was pretty sure, even had wives and children. George had neither, and he lived in a beautiful manor house on the hill upwind from the factory’s smoke, with six guards, a cook, and a housekeeper. He’d had a wife at one point years ago, before he’d owned the factory, but she hadn’t been able to provide an heir so he’d disentangled himself from her.
It was much more pleasant this way. He could enjoy his wealth and his life in peace, away from the annoying and noisome bothers of fussy women, or the tiresome jockeying for position with other, more social men. No, here, George could enjoy his heavy dinners, and his sauna baths, and his expensive alcohols in peace.
The island, technically, was a part of the local archipelago, but he had purchased the land wholesale from the local kingship and enjoyed it outside of the interference of politics. Given that his factory town didn’t have the resources to resupply ships, the fishing boats that visited had to dock on the main islands anyway and paid their docking tariffs and spent their money there. So the king didn’t care to insist on formal taxes or annexations. And while the cannery afforded him a pleasant, wealthy lifestyle, it was not the sort of untold riches that attracted pirates. His handful of guards were more than enough to deal with any local ruffians who got it into their head to pay him a visit and disturb his peace.
At least, that was what George had believed when he went to bed that night, and every night before it. That night, he had enjoyed a hot bath, and a generous nightcap of good whiskey and a dessert of clotted cream with imported strawberries, and settled out of his dressing gown into his silk sheets to drift off to dreamless and heavy slumber.
He awakened, unable to breath, to the sound of his bed curtains jingling, and ugly voices in his own private bedroom.
“Get a load of these, Tre. I think this guy’s got solid gold curtain rings!” George barely registered the look of the speaker– a tall thin shadow behind his silk bed canopy– as he clutched madly at his mouth and nose, which were filled with some kind of sticky gunk. He clawed at his face, finding his fingers sticking to it, pulling away gooey strands instead of clearing his airways.
“Hey, hey, now that’s luxury isn’t it, Dia?” a giggling voice agreed. “The curtains are silk, too. Not just silk sheets. Silk fucking curtains.”
Those same curtains parted; in the dim light from out in the hall the figure who peered between them almost seemed to glow— an angelic looking little boy, with soft blond hair, and a sweet face, an upturned nose and pink, bow lips under dark glasses.
George rolled toward him, reaching out to him with sticky hands, moaning from behind the stuff that clogged his mouth and nose, begging silently for help as the edges of his vision went dark.
The boy made a disgusted face, and stepped backward away. “Trebol. He’s not dead yet.”
“Not yet?” The gigging voice grew serious and George saw a great, ugly shadow in a dark coat loom over the little boy into his blurring vision. “Stubborn bastard, eh? Ehehe. Why don’t you pull him out of bed so we don’t end up with stained sheets, Doffy?”
“Sure thing.”
The last thing George saw as his vision faded was the angelic looking child stepping toward him again, his pretty face contorted as if he had just stepped in something foul. He felt something tug around his wrists and his ankles and his neck, and the last thing he was conscious of was being jerked out of bed and left like a lump on the floor.
The next morning the six foremen of the factory were told that Mr. Watts had passed away from a sudden, unfortunate illness, and that his beloved little nephew, Doflamingo Donquixote had been willed the deed to the factory.
Young Doflamingo’s secretary, Mr. Trebol, had the deed to the factory in his hands when they met and insisted on giving each of the foremen a 20% raise and an immediate, generous bonus. In return, all six of the foremen gave Doflamingo their wholehearted condolences on his uncle’s tragic death, and got back to work with smiles on their faces.
“People are so fucking easy, Tre,” Diamante said, later that same morning as he was going through the cold larder. Their unwilling benefactor, the late George Watts, had had expensive tastes. There were imported tangerines– tangerines! From the East Blue!— and very fresh smelling coffee beans, and salt pork, and a whole side of beef. “I can’t believe that they actually bought that line about Doffy being this guy’s nephew.”
Trebol laughed. “Hey, hey, It’s not that they believe it, Dia. It’s that they don’t care. Watts wasn’t paying them enough to care if he lived or died, and we’re paying them enough to continue not to be curious, you know?”
“Guess that’s what he gets for being a shit boss,” Dia jeered with him. “Now that’s a North Blue story if I ever heard one. The boss at the old shit factory got murdered. Oh well, at least the guy who killed him’s not beating us as hard.”
He brought a pile of tangerines over to the rough wooden table in the middle of the kitchen where Trebol was sitting on the bench beside it. There was a bloody smear on the tabletop that Dia was careful to keep the fruit clear of— a remnant of their little adventure last night that had yet to be cleaned up. The cook, probably? Pica had taken care of him, and Pica always left a fucking mess.
“Exactly, my friend.” Trebol chuckled and started peeling one of the tangerines. “These are awfully small for oranges.”
Diamante glanced around the kitchen for a rag, finding one in the sink, and grabbing it to wipe the table.
“Tangerines, actually, Tre. They’re sweeter. Our man Watts had fancy taste, this shit only grows in the East Blue.”
“Ahh,” Trebol nodded, keeping clear while Dia cleaned up, and putting a slice of tangerine in his wide mouth thoughtfully. “That tracks. The ship would have come through about a week ago.”
“How long did you say we were waiting here for the next one?” Dia rinsed the bloody rag out in the sink, washing away what was left of the cook. The rest of him was a corpse, rolled up neatly like cloth and soon to be buried under the manor’s chicken coop.
“About three months,” Trebol reminded him. He sucked on another slice of tangerine. “Hey, hey these are really good.”
“Make sure to save a couple for Doffy, but we’ll want to eat ’em before they go bad for sure. Be a waste otherwise.”
They had come to the cannery on Morey Pier for a specific reason; a twofold reason according to Trebol. Firstly, because it was completely owned by the cannery’s master, and not part and parcel of the rule of the archipelago currently undergoing its restructuring into the World Government. It would be a safe place to hide out— for a little while, at least.
And secondly because while the cannery’s primary focus was processing and canning the fish brought in by local ships it also processed and canned fruit imported from across the Grand Line. Which meant that merchant ships, bound for and returning from the Grand Line, made regular stops at the island’s completely undefended harbor.
One ship particularly, Trebol had apparently taken a fancy too from the shipping manifests that he’d read. The Bully Whim, a ship geared and arsenaled for sailing and combat on the Grand Line, but whose captain was apparently such a skinflint that he only had her fully crewed when he was on the Grand Line proper, keeping just a skeleton crew when he was delivering on the North Blue.
The moron.
Dia had to admit it sounded like a great opportunity. He wasn’t exactly thrilled that they were going to be sitting around for another three months, but if they were going to do that, the Watts manor was a nice place to put their feet up for a while and get their shit in order. Maybe sort out hiring some crew for when they set sail.
And besides, even Diamante had to admit they had some unfinished business in the area.
“Three months,” he mused, sitting down at the table across from Trebol and peeling a tangerine for himself. “That’s just around Doffy’s birthday, now I think about it. We ought to do something good for him.”
“Hey, hey, that’s not a bad idea,” Trebol smiled widely, bits of tangerine in his teeth. “We’ll put our heads together, eh?”
“We’ll put our heads together,” Dia agreed, sucking on a tangerine slice. Trebol was right, they were good. Diamante had only had a tangerine once before this, and it had been older, and much less juicy. These were fresh, and almost blissfully sweet. Like the mouth of a lover in a bawdy novel. Speaking of which— “We better get him something good, he’s getting older. You know what I saw the other day?”
Trebol glanced over, curiously cocking his head. “Mm? Obviously he’s getting older. What about it?”
“Caught him making out with Vergo in the hallway,” Dia grinned. “Boys are growin’ up.”
Trebol made a flustered noise, and brought out his handkerchief, worrying it between his fingers. Dia thought he caught a flush in his partner’s sallow cheeks. “Is that so?”
Dia’s grin hitched wider. “Thought you’d wanna know. At least neither of ’em is gonna get knocked up, right?”
“Ah, indeed.” Trebol’s flush became more obvious, probably thinking of the scene.
Dia couldn’t help himself, winding him up. Trebol got so knotted up about physical stuff— about sex, kissing, whatever— when it came up, probably because of his embarrassment about his looks and physical issues. But it made him an incredibly easy target to tease. Dia had seen him go bright red and avert his gaze deliberately, sneaking jealous looks all the while, with hookers and their clients in bars, and at young men getting rowdy with each other in back alleys.
“Got something on your mind?” Dia leaned across the table until he was close to him. Trebol was definitely thinking about Doffy and Vergo making out.
Admittedly, so was he.
Trebol opened his mouth to protest, but Diamante caught him in a kiss instead, rough and sloppy.
Just for the moment, instead of cigarette smoke and phlegm they both tasted like stolen tangerines.
The manor on Morey Pier was the probably single nicest building that Pica had ever been in. It was certainly the single nicest place he’d ever spent the night, even if the smell from the factory when the wind occasionally blew it their direction reminded him unpleasantly of the fishing boat.
He wrinkled his nose as the scent stung it, standing outside by the chicken coop where he was just finishing burying the rolled up bodies of the manor’s former staff. Nearby Doffy had been feeding the chickens and when Pica glanced over, he saw him warily staring at one behind his shades while he carefully petted it.
Pica had never been around chickens for any particular length of time. Did they bite? Were they soft? Did Doffy like chickens?
He finished smoothing the earth over the refuse filling the hole in completely, and curiously walked over to stand quietly next to Doffy.
“Hey Pica.” Doffy picked the chicken up carefully in his arms where it clucked and gurgled. He turned toward him. “Want to pet it? I saw you watching.”
Pica reached out and quietly petted its feathers. It was soft.
He’d seen him watching. That wasn’t a surprise. Pica was always watching Doffy. Doffy was the best. He was fascinating. He didn’t mind, right?
Doffy smiled, holding the chicken while Pica petted it gently.
“I killed a chicken once,” Doffy said thoughtfully. “While we were on the run. My father didn’t like that. He said it was cruel, but he still ate it.”
Pica rested his hand on the chicken, thinking about how easy it would be to kill, and how delicious it would taste.
He went back to petting it, and murmured quietly, “I’m sorry, Doffy.”
Doffy shook his head. “It’s okay. Come on, let’s go find Vergo.” He set the chicken back down in its nest, and started to brush himself off fastidiously.
Vergo. That reminded Pica of something else he’d seen while he was watching Doffy.
“Hey, Doffy… what were you and Vergo doing on the ship?”
Doffy cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
Pica felt himself blushing, and he wasn’t altogether certain why. “You know, uh… with your mouths… Were you… kissing?”
Doffy’s sunny smile split his face as he understood. “Oh! Yeah, we were kissing. It was Vergo’s idea.”
“Oh.”
The way he said it made it obvious that Doffy was rather proud of Vergo for having come up with the idea, and Pica was immediately jealous that he hadn’t thought of it first since Doffy obviously liked it so much. He’d seen kissing before, of course, he knew what it was, but he hadn’t thought before that moment about why anyone would want to do it, or that Doffy might want to do it.
The idea that Doffy wanted to do it made it suddenly very interesting indeed.
He might have seen the expression on Pica’s face— he was often very good at reading him, which Pica was grateful for– because after he’d finished dusting himself off from the chicken feathers, he grabbed his hand and pulled him close with his threads.
“Do you want to try it?”
Pica felt a sting of embarrassment, shifting back and forth, seeing himself reflected in Doffy’s dark glasses.
“O-only if you want to,” he murmured.
Pica was desperate to try it. A knot had formed in his stomach.
“Of course I want to,” Doffy insisted brightly. He tugged Pica’s wrist. “Come on, let’s go find Vergo and we’ll show you.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Pica reorganized his thoughts.
Somehow he had gotten the impression that kisses were only supposed to involve two people, but if Doffy thought that Vergo should be there too, then obviously Doffy was right.
Admittedly, when he thought about it, he kind of liked the idea of trying kissing with Vergo too, though it wasn’t as immediately, desperately necessary as the idea of kissing Doffy was.
He nodded seriously, and let Doffy tug him away on their little mission.
When Doffy found Vergo, the young man was puttering around the side of the house. A big patch of grass had been cleared, and he’d made the effort of ringing it with four stones in the shape of a square and posts made from repurposed fencing. In the center, he’d erected a tall scaffold with a chain hanging from it.
It was, as often with Vergo, not entirely clear what he was trying to do as he rubbed his chin and stared at it through his sunglasses. Doffy observed it curiously as he stopped behind him, still dragging Pica along with his threads. He stood for a moment and observed the strange little construction, taking it in.
Without preamble, he asked, “What are you making, Vergo?”
Vergo tilted his head over his shoulder.
“I forgot,” he admitted with a rub of his neck. “I think maybe it was a gallows? For meat? Meat gallows….no , wait, people are made of meat. All gallows are meat gallows—”
He snapped his fingers. “Punching bag. I was trying to make a space for training.”
Doffy patiently waited for him to work through his own thoughts, and smiled brightly. “Oh! A punching bag! That sounds like fun. I was looking at the chickens while Pica finished burying the bodies.”
Doffy snuck a glance back at Pica, who stood behind him, flushed and looking rather bashful.
Vergo tilted his head to the side at Pica blushing, before he chuckled quietly. “Funny. Did the chickens like the bodies? Or did they like you more, Doffy?”
Doffy beamed. “I think they liked me more since I fed them right away, and they’ll have to wait for the bodies.”
“Anybody’d like you more, Doffy,” Pica said quietly.
Vergo nodded with one of his thin and subtle smiles, one that—if you knew him—radiated a simmering fondness. “He’s not wrong. If I were one of the chickens I’d like you more right away, too. I’d try to fly on top of your head and roost.”
“Well, if you were a chicken, I’d let you roost on my head,” Doffy told him, giggling at the thought. Vergo said odd things sometimes, but he knew he meant them affectionately. “Just like I let you kiss me. Pica was asking about it.”
Vergo tilted his head at Pica, smiling a little wider. “Was he? Curious about kissing, Pica?”
Pica had gone even brighter red. He covered his face with his hands and nodded, his hair bouncing around his shoulders.
“I said he could try it with us. If you want to, Vergo?”
Vergo swung his fist where the punching bag would have been, seeming to have forgotten it wasn’t there, and maybe distracting himself as he tinted a little pink.
“We’ve got this big fancy house, and some time to relax. It’s prime time to kiss.”
Prime time to kiss in the big fancy house. Doffy thought about that, and it seemed to hold true, especially comparing it with the kinds of kisses he saw in the news comics and berry novels that Vergo shared with him. Yes, kissing in the big fancy house seemed perfect, and they should do more of it.
“Exactly,” Doffy nodded. “Let’s show Pica first, and then we can kiss him.”
Hidden behind his hands, Pica nodded, and Doffy felt that there was something almost adorable about him flustered that way. Vergo grinned too,, and gave Pica a thumbs up. The two of them had gone way back, Doffy knew that. Back to their childhoods in the orphanage. He was sure that this would be fun for both of them as well.
After the thumbs up, he walked towards Doffy and offered his hand with a small smile. “The usual kinda kiss? Or the newspaper kiss.”
“Hmm….” Doffy tapped his lips and looked over at Pica to judge.
“What’s the difference?” he asked softly from between his hands.
“Usual kiss is more fun.” That was Doffy’s assessment anyway,
Vergo nodded firmly. “Newspaper kiss is a little…” He leaned in and pecked a chaste kiss on Doffy’s lips. “Like that. Usual kiss is more like the ones the people in bars do.”
“Like this!” Doffy said. He pulled Vergo closer at once and pressed his lips to his more firmly, sneaking his tongue between his mouth. Newspaper kisses were nice, but kisses like this sent thrills of warmth and tingling through his body.
Vergo melted against him like he always did, affectionately sucking at his lips and meeting his tongue with his own as his hand rested against Doflamingo’s side to subtly lean in closer. Doffy felt the thrill shiver through him, and kissed harder for a moment before pulling back. They were supposed to be showing Pica, after all– he didn’t want to get too excited and make him feel left out.
Vergo sucked in a sharp intake of breath, before he looked at Pica with a nod. “And that’s the usual kiss.”
He turned and smiled to find Pica, as expected, watching with wide, curious eyes. He nodded mutely with rapt fascination.
Doffy grabbed Vergo’s hand again and pulled him over toward Pica. “Show him how to do it, and then we’ll practice.”
Vergo lightly tripped before he stood before Pica and looked down at him with a thin smile. “You ready for this?”
Doffy turned to watch them, resting his hands on his hips and smiling curiously. Pica shifted nervously, wringing his hands for a moment, his dark skin flushed. He nodded, and stepped closer to Vergo, chest to chest with him.
“I’m ready.”
Vergo nodded once before he reached out to catch Pica’s chin and tilt it up enough for him to bend in and kiss him firmly on the lips, his tongue visible briefly before he tried to press it into Pica’s mouth. Doffy watched Pica fumblingly respond, awkward at first but seeming to catch on to the idea at least a little bit, opening his mouth and pressing his lips with Vergo’s.
Vergo, as he knew well by now, had started to really pick up the art of kissing in their experimenting together. He looped an arm around Pica’s waist and pulled him closer as he deepened the kiss with a soft huff of breath through his nose.
It seemed like he was a good teacher, too, because despite his initial fumbling, at least as far as Doffy could see, Pica was picking it up fast. Even if he was as flushed as if he’d run five miles.
When the two of them parted, Doffy clapped his hands together delighted as Pica glanced embarrassedly at Vergo and then over to Doffy questioningly.
“Did you like it?”
Pica glanced at Vergo again and then down at the ground and nodded quickly.
Vergo grinned proudly. “Hell yeah. Hoped you would, buddy.”
“You want to try with me, next?” Doffy offered excitedly. “I was telling Vergo we need to practice a lot to get good at it.”
Pica nodded quickly at that too— eagerly— and Doffy obligingly tugged him toward him with a number of slender red threads. He didn’t wait at all, instead stealing the kiss while Pica’s mouth was still moist with Vergo’s. Pica put his thick arms around Doffy’s waist and Doffy liked that— Pica was big, and solid and warm– though not as warm as Vergo got.
He saw Vergo watching them with his thin smile, flushed with his arms crossed over his chest.
Doffy grinned over at him, pleased once again for Vergo having introduced the idea. He looked back at Pica, who looked incredibly dazed.
“How was that? You picked up the idea fast!”
Pica rubbed his cheek. “It was nice…”
“Then you can practice with us whenever,” Doffy declared. “Right, Vergo?”
“He’s a good learner,” Vergo nodded, before he bumped Doffy’s shoulder. “Yeah. We can all practice together whenever we want. I’d like to get good at it.”
Vergo was a little surprised when Doffy came to him wanting to ‘teach Pica how to kiss’. Not unhappy, he liked Pica. His best friend since they were younger, and his partner in the gang since before even Doffy had joined—he wasn’t going to say no to kissing him for sure.
Especially if it made Doffy happy. Which it clearly did. Maybe he was just hoping they could all get good at it, practice with one another until they were as expert as the people they’d seen around town.
Maybe he just liked seeing the people he was close to make out.
Maybe that was just his idea of fun. Vergo thought it was kind of fun too, certainly enjoying watching Doffy and Pica kiss.
He paused and murmured. “I mean, you know. For Doffy. He seems to like it.”
Pica nodded hastily as well. “Yeah, for Doffy.”
Doffy just giggled and pushed his hair back. “You know, you can just say if you want to get good at it for your own reasons too.”
Privately, he was quite pleased with how much they wanted to please him. He wondered if Trebol or Diamante would want him to kiss them as well?
It was certainly worth considering.