Chapter Text
Soul marks are the tool of Balance, scholars say, and the way Fate can make things right, give just a little hope when all seems lost. When lives are in peril, when mortal danger is at hand, a soul mark will appear and soulmates will have just those few extra second to turn the wheel of Fate, to undo what once would have been set in stone. At least that is what Shanks knows, what his Father - Captain had taught him when he was only knee high and enthralled with the dark words scribbled on the older man's left arm.
Silvers Rayleigh. Captain had laughed telling Shanks (and Buggy too, hiding behind the door, pretending he was not listening) how the words initially had been red, the color of mortal peril, a sign that his First Mate was in trouble. How he had managed to push Rayleigh out of the line of fire not a second too soon, both of them collapsing on deck while Gaban took care of the stray marine that had managed to sneak up on them. How the words had later turned black, a sign they were meant to be, even if Ray was still pussyfooting around his Captain, refusing to admit there were any other feelings involved than admiration and loyalty.
Romantic bonds become black. We don’t know why it happens like this, it just does. Familial bonds become dark blue, like the Sea when she is at her worst, churning in the throes of her anger. And platonic bonds become a soft blue, the caress of the waves under the Sunny sky. It is as it has always been. What cannot be denied is thus: when one’s soul mate is in mortal danger, a red mark will appear, crimson as blood, sometimes bleeding, sometimes burning, depending on the depth of the bond between the soulmates. If Fate is not spurned and the one marked for death perishes, the mark will remain but turn pale grey, like the clouds weeping, like the Sea mourning, like the foam dragging that which had been lost back to Davy Jones’ locker.
***
An Era begins. A man dies. A pirate king’s head falls at the feet of gawking spectators, a macabre show that had gathered people from far and sundry, all of them expecting – expecting what Garp wonders as his friend’s life blood seeps in the damned wood of the scaffolding, as he feels his arm burn and does not need to check to see that the pale blue mark, once the reason of jest between himself and Roger’s crew – Lawless Bastard – had turned grey, grey, grey, mourning grey not the peaceful blue it had been for decades without end. Whatever they had been expecting they seem to have gotten it with Roger’s last words, as a veritable hoard runs away from the scaffold, no longer caring about the man who breathed his last there, about the man that had shaped an entire Era and launched another. They run to ships and dinghies, run to pubs and dark corners, run and run to plot and scheme and take to the seas hoping to get their hands on Roger’s treasure. The One Piece. The answer to the world’s secrets, to the Will of D and the Void Century. His friend had offered to tell him, in that damned prison, when Garp had almost broken and offered to bust him out. He had declined just as Roger declined freedom.
“Take care of my kid, that’s all I ask.”
And damned he be if he won’t do it, even if Roger didn’t make it easy for him. A kid squirrelled somewhere Roger hadn’t told him where and the Marines desperate to get their hands on anyone who had not been covered by Roger’s deal.
A seagull caws above his head. The plaza is almost empty now, but he can still see shadows here and there. Blue hair and red nose, a wrist clutched to his chest and tears streaming down his face. Red hair and a strawhat, arm hanging uselessly at his side, refusing to even contemplate what the change in color means. Blond hair, haki crying out around him, his Voice mourning – yearning – cursing – hating – hating – hating, broken glass at his feet. Black hair, a hand on Rayleigh’s shoulder, stiff as a board – Gaban offering support when he himself feels like falling to pieces.
Good, Garp thinks. At least they didn’t let the kids to witness this travesty alone. Perhaps, they’ll continue taking care of them, fifteen is too young for Red and Blue to hit the Blues by themselves. And Garp himself has another child to find, one that will be undoubtedly much too young to defend himself from the barest of threat.
***
Buggy is five when he gets his first soul mark; five and chained, dragged to an auction house to be sold like cattle, his last memory tears on his mother’s eyes as she accepts the handful of berry that she sold him for. The mark does not burn stronger than the whips he had received, does not chafe harder than the shackles on his tiny wrists. If anything, it’s a barely there pain, a flash gone in an instant because the moment after it had gone red, the name on his arm turns a sickly grey. His mother’s name gone in a flash. Becka. Had he been older, he would have laughed at the bitter irony of the woman who had sold him, the one who had chosen to give him up for drugs and pretty veils being his soulmate. At 5, crying from the pain in his back, his face bruised and his captors leering at him, there’s a certain numbness to him that Buggy cannot even start to untangle. Not until another child is brought next to him to be sold, red haired and snarling, eyes flashing with rage, not for himself, but the blue haired boy next to him. Not until the world becomes bright and free and red, a power that he will later learn is haki curling around him and bringing all the slavers to their knees.
The second mark comes when he is 15 and he is aware what’s going to happen. Captain – Father is kneeling on a scaffold, laughing as he dares those around him to take to the seas and the swords come down, down, down. It seems as if it happens in slow motion, the burn of the mark, mere inches below his mother’s name, the blades falling, blood, so much blood, crimson staining wood, dripping on the streets and then another burn. He does not need to check to see the name is pearly grey, does not need to think about it being red – red – red for mere moments, red like Captain’s blood burned on his retina, red like the coat he died in, red like that flames that will engulf his body once the Marines get tired of parading their supposed victory around.
He clutches his wrist to his chest and cries; there’s red at the edge of his vision, Shanks at his side sobbing openly, a straw hat pressed over his eyes. Yellow somewhere further in the crowd, Rayleigh’s Voice crying out in anguish and he knows neither he nor his brother will receive any aid from their second father, his heartbreak overwhelming, a bleeding wound that will not allow him to look after the two starkest reminders of Roger. Black somewhere further away, Gaban making his way to a small caravel, already leaving, scattering like all the other Roger pirates had scattered until it’s just him and Shanks alone crying in the rain and throwing barbed words at each other, vitriol spewing from Buggy, betrayal in his soul, words falling before he can even think of what he’s saying, Shanks looking at him with heartbreak in his eyes.
Buggy runs. He runs and runs and runs and doesn’t stop.
Sometimes even with a crew and a ship, with the Big Top sailing the East Blue and Orange Town set as his base, with his feet planted firmly on deck, watching Cabaji fumbling another trick and Mohji scratching Richie’s side, he thinks he is still running.
***
Shanks learns what soul marks are at his father’s knee. He is five years old when he sees the black writing on Roger’s arm, the cursive Silvers Rayleigh winding on his forearm as elegantly as all the letters Ray-san pens himself. His little fingers trace each of the letters and he ask, curious as only a child can be why is Ray-san’s name on the Captain’s arm. The tale is told through booming laughter and scowling denials from Rayleigh’s part and that is how Shanks finds out about soul marks. He discovers later that most of the crew bears at least another’s name. Gaban’s wrist holds both Rayleigh’s elegant letters and Momora’s chicken scratch in the pale blue of friendship. Crocus has a pale grey with a woman’s name, the letters almost faded with time. Spencer and Taro have each other’s name in a black so dark it seems almost tattooed and Shanks, sometime later at seven years, is old enough to understand that whatever etched their names in their skin left more than that mark if the way their gaze darkens is any indicative.
Shanks is 15 when he gets his own mark; fifteen and standing in the rain watching his father laugh one last time, watching his Captain mess with the Marines one last time as he ushers in the Great Pirate Era, as he taunts all those present with the existence and location of the One Piece. He is fifteen when his wrist burns, but he does not look at it – he already knows what he would see. Fifteen when the burn fades and swords fall and red words turn to dull grey, when the Sea howls her misery and a Storm shrieks her fury at the worlds. Fifteen and alone because Ray-san, his dad, is too hurt, too agonized to remember to look for them, because Buggy is betrayed and heartbroken, refusing to understand why Shanks won’t go for the One Piece, won’t fulfill the promise the two of them made in that little cottage where they had been left behind.
But Shanks knows, Shanks has been told, it’s not time, it won’t be them and he can’t find it in himself to make a journey of futility, to follow in his father’s footsteps just to fall short of succeeding. Not when it means crossing the Blues with a crew that is not the one that had raised him, the one he called family, not even if it means making his brother happy.
One day another will come, a little prince for the New Era.
One day a King will be crowned and if he is lucky Shanks will be there to witness it.
But it is not him.
***
Buggy does not think of soul marks and soulmates for the better part of 8 years. There is no need to when he makes sure to keep to the weakest of Blues, makes sure to keep his crew safe. They are not family – not yet – but they are nakama and they are loyal, bonds forged in the darkness of a circus tent as they made plans over plans to escape and strike out on their own. There are no dangers here he cannot protect them from – people forget that Buggy may have been the weakest of the Roger Pirates, but he had been one nonetheless, no matter how young. There were tricks he learned at Rouge-san’s knees, lessons his fathers had imparted, training that he and Shanks had been drilled through again and again and again by Gaban. Smokes and mirrors are only a part of what makes Buggy the Star Clown.
He doesn’t expect to ever feel that burn again, that one that hit him when father – Captain died. The Roger pirates are all scattered surely none pay any heed to his existence anymore – he ignores the fact that his mother had been his soulmate even after she abandoned him – sold him – that he knew of her death, but not what caused it. He ignores the blood that spilled from his wrist two years after Captain died, Portgas D. Rouge etched in red in his skin before the name turned blessedly dark blue - she’s alive, she’s alive and it’s enough, Buggy does not need to know more. He ignores the fact that Shanks is still in his Blue, making waves for himself, amassing the biggest bounty the East had ever seen and though they may have sundered their bond that day in the right, there was still a chance, miniscule as it was that one day Shanks’ name would flare on his arm – not here, not now, not soon because what could even be a match for his brother in the East Blue?
He is proven wrong when his right wrist flares in pain during one of their reversals, Buggy's grip on the trapeze almost slipping where he is showing the Funan brothers a new move, the pain not strong enough to faze him, but unexpected enough to make him stagger. He finishes the move without the effortlessness he usually conveys and checks his wrist - he's afraid to check it, afraid to see the name, to see red turn to pale grey but he is too far away, what can he even do, it's just another way for Fate to laugh at him -
The mark is red, bleeding red, red like Shank's hair, red like those marks Teach had left over his eye, still vivid after all these years, red like blood, red like death and Buggy is almost driven to his knees by questions without end - Shanks is still in the East Blue, he knows, what could have attacked him here of all places, on Buggy's turf, in the waters where his connections spread high and low, where everyone knows better than to mess with what's his regardless of the persona he shows in everyday life - that he misses the most glaring detail of his new soul mark. The name adorning his wrist is a simple three letter one - Red. Not Shanks the boy who he had abandoned in the rain, not Gol Shanks, his brother on the Oro Jackson, not Akagami no Shanks, the pirate with the current biggest bounty in the East. No, simply Red, the boy that had taken one look at Buggy in chains and broken them.
Buggy had never ran faster, but this time it is back to the life he left behind and not away from it. He merely prays he is not too late.