Consistent meals, consistent sleep, and consistent work were things you hadn't had before now, and it was a little awkward to adjust to it. The first few nights you barely slept 4 hours because you weren't used to getting much rest in the first place. Swabbing the decks was a relaxing job and you did it with enough gusto that Wire asked you what Killer put in your breakfast to make you that happy.

Honestly, you were just happy to not have to look over your shoulder every few minutes. CP9 could just drop out of the sky if they wanted to, but it was statistically unlikely for them to do so. Especially since there was no indication that you'd gotten aboard a pirate ship. The ship itself was full of new and distraction worthy levels of things for you to learn. You pestered the crew for anything they'd willingly show you, and usually it was a bit of a trade.

You'd learn a rope knot and you'd teach them the shoulder throw you did to Killer. They'd teach you how to whittle, and you'd tell them the basics of armament haki. House taught you how to assist her with doctor stuff, since you had nimble fingers and good focus, and it was a good way to keep you out from underfoot of the rest of the crew when you'd done all you'd been asked to for the day.

It took a couple days to convince Killer to let you help in the kitchen. It was a treat to be able to use a kitchen to cook meals, and if you were being completely honest, you could listen to Killer talk for hours. His presence was relaxing, and his voice was calming. He spoke evenly, and with minimal prompting would show you how to do all sorts of things when it came to cooking. He had a real passion for it, and you were more than happy to do prep work in exchange for good food.

Killer having help meant that the quality of food rose for the whole crew. Time constraints meant Killer could only really focus on food for the Big Four as you called them: Killer, Kid, Wire and Heat. Everyone else got what Killer would call scraps, but it was still delicious. With you doing most of the slicing and dicing, leaving Killer to focus on the finer points, it meant everyone had really good food.

This made you besties with almost the entire crew overnight. They were all closeknit, and had accepted you, but there was a big difference between "On the crew" and "welcome by the crew". Suddenly you had a lot more names to keep straight: Gig, Rock, Hop and Hip who weren't related, they assured you - Dive, Papas, Emma, Boogie, Bubblegum, Reck, and Pomp, and a dozen more.

You let everyone call you Brat, or Short stack, or whatever else moniker they wanted to give you. You were shy about giving out your name because it felt like there was an alarm attached to it. If you said it out loud then the wind carried it to the ears of CP9. It felt safer for you to stand on the shores of Mary Geoise and declare your hatred of the five elders than to speak your name into the wind.

Once you hit a routine it felt good. You slept closer to six hours, and your schedule was nice. Wake, swab, breakfast, haki lecture – being able to teach the crew in exchange for being accepted made you feel better, snacks, help House, help Killer, dinner, sparring/stretching/being a nuisance, and then sleep. Which only got shuffled if you were rotated in for being on lookout duty, which happened a little more often than you think it was supposed to after you proved you could leap into the crow's nest in almost a single bound, and when you spotted trouble before anyone else could see it.

"MARINES!" You bellowed down from the crow's nest, catching the sails on the horizon. You jumped down from the crow's nest and landed beside Wire who had come over to the mast. "Off the starboard quarter, they're a long way out, I don't know if they've seen us."

Wire looked, squinted, looked longer, "I don'- Oh. There it is. Sharp eyes, Short stack."

You grinned, "You can call me Brat, Wire, it's fine."

Wire gave a weak smile and a grunt. "Then go tell the Captain, Brat. He should be in the mess with Killer."

You gave a lazy salute and took off, Wire started organizing people on the deck. It had been a couple weeks, so you knew the ship well, and slipped through the halls easily to the get to the galley. You still ran silently because you'd moved silently for years, so you didn't think much of it. You caught part of a conversation before loudly bursting into the galley to interrupt it.

"It's asking too much, Kid-."

"Marines!" You hollered, stepping into view. "Off the starboard quarter. Might not have seen us yet, Captain."

Kid's aggravated gaze that had been directed at Killer turned into an interested smile. "You sound excited, Brat."

You shrug, "Marines are little birdies who talk to Cipher Pol. Pirates are good bird hunters." You take a step back to stop blocking the door as Kid and Killer start toward you. "And admittedly, it's been a long time since I let all out in a fight. Well, as all out as I can risk at least."

Kid quirked an eyebrow walking by you, and you explained. "If I copy your power I might as well clap myself in irons and go lay in Rob Lucci's lap. I like being a nameless bounty-less pirate."

"Only one way to keep that record if we face these marines." Killer stated, ruffling your hair and sending an unexpected shock down your back. You'd been finding yourself enjoying sparring with him specifically and the kitchen was snug for two people. Skinship was something House had to explain to you, but she laughed when she did, and said what you were dealing with weren't as familial.

"If it's them or me," you mumbled. You weren't keen on killing, but it weren't like you weren't able to. Still, it was pretty obvious it wasn't your first choice.

"You've got nakama now, Brat." Kid stated, stepping into the sunlight of the deck. "You can line 'em up and leave them for the crew."

"House doesn't even fight at all," Killer added.

"House's the doctor." You looked away and rubbed your arm before following after them.

"And you're the reason half the crew can use armament haki now," Killer rebuked. "If you want to stay out of sight, it's fair to say that's okay."

You grunted. "If I wanted to stay out of sight I wouldn't have passed out on the roof of the cabins."

The crew went into a routine that was well-practiced from long before you'd joined. You stayed out of the way, the first time wasn't the time to try and help, but you took in as much as you could so you'd know what to do next time. Kid had the boat turn to meet the Marine ship, and you kept your eyes on the horizon to make sure the singular ship was indeed on its own.

Seconds later you heard the shrill whistle as the Marine ship finally realized they weren't alone on this open patch of water. You could feel tension rising in the air around you, but there a sort of joy coming off Kid and Killer.

When you liked to fight, you liked to fight.

Cannons fired around you, memories of your time with CP9 slipped through your mind, and you ran haki through your quarterstaff. Rushing toward one another it didn't take long for the ships to close the space between them. Kid kept most of the cannonballs aimed at his ship at bay, his devil fruit was efficient for such a thing. You knew what you could do with your haki and wanted to knock back a cannon ball, when the perfect shot lined up, you shouted for it and leapt.

You hadn't explained spreading haki into a weapon, it was hard to describe and teach until someone had a solid understanding. You connected and pushed it back, but the force of a cannonball shot was more than you had expected. Your quarterstaff was fine, and so were you, but the return force from the shot acted on your airborne body. This was your first time doing something like this, so you hadn't adjusted for the impact when you leapt.

You would've been shoved back into the deck awkwardly, but fortunately Killer caught you. "Was that haki in your stick?"

"Quarterstaff," you corrected for the 100th time, "and yes."

"If you want to knock cannonballs out of the air you need haki in your body too." He suggested, setting you down on the deck. You could feel him giving you a bemused look from under the mask.

"You are not wrong." You admitted.

Your conversation was cut short as the two ships were side by side and all hell broke loose. You had decided to stay on the Victoria Punk this time, instead of rushing onto a Marine Ship that might have your picture onboard. You put your own face covering on, pulling up a hood, and leapt into the fray on the deck, as half the crew – led by Kid and Killer – went onto the Marine vessel.

The fight went laughably fast. It took longer to rid the Victoria Punk of dead marines and pull supplies from the defeated marine vessel. It was unsettling moving corpses, you had to admit, and your stomach churned a few times. In all the work you'd done for CP9, corpse disposal wasn't a part of that. When all was said and done you distracted yourself by swabbing the last of the signs of the fight off the deck.

As the sun was dipping below the horizon, you were sitting on some crates by the stern of the ship, watching the sun vanish. Killer came and sat with you, and you realized that you'd missed your window to help him cook.

"How you holding up, brat?"

"Well enough. I'd killed before for CP9 before I bailed, but," you fiddled with your hair absently, "I never had to deal with corpses. It's weird, isn't it? Being okay with creating corpses but not with sorting 'em out after."

"Back up, you worked for CP9?"

Oh.

"Yeah." You answered quietly. "I was recruited when I was 6, I ditched at 16. I've been dodging them for seven years now."

"Why run after ten years?"

You shrugged. "They realized I had this... gift? To copy devil fruit powers, and suddenly I was being thrown at every problem." You stretched, realizing Killer was relaxed and wasn't getting ready to toss you off the ship. "After a while it felt less like I was doing some kind of grand good for the world, and more like I was just a little slaughter bot for them to unleash on fools too weak to stop me."

You hugged your knees up to your chin, resting your head against your them and smiling. "I decided I wanted to live by my own values and left. I was almost unsuccessful, but Lucci underestimated me and I managed to give him the slip after he thought I was beat."

"Well, I'm glad you ended up here, brat." Killer admitted as the last few rays of like shimmered over his mask.

Ba-thump.

"Me too," you admitted, feeling the heat rising into your face and being grateful there wasn't any light to see it by. "Ah, I missed helping with dinner, is there still food?"

"If there isn't, I'll cook something." He assured you, "It's been a day for you, so I don't mind."

You laughed, stepping down from your box. "Despite your insistence otherwise, I'm well aware you enjoy cooking for your crew, but I still appreciate it. It's nice to be pampered sometimes."

Killer extended an elbow toward you and bowed ever so slightly. "Lady." He prompted; you could hear the smile in his voice.

"Oh, what a gentleman," you replied in an overly dramatic fashion. Your heart was beating itself to death in your chest as you slipped a hand through the crook of his arm, trying your absolute best to remain outwardly calm.

You saw House on our way back. "Oh, hey love birds," she said, not even looking up from her paperwork to look at us. You couldn't stop the small jolt that ran through you, but you tried to slip your arm out of Killer's as naturally as possible. "Captain says he wants to talk to you both after the brat's got some food in her gob."

You went red to your ears for a moment, glad to be standing behind Killer and still mostly in the dark. Killer's voice was steady when he spoke, but it seemed to take him a second longer than usual to reply.

"Sure thing."