My name's Nox. I revamped an old Tumblr I made to post about my yumeship (kinda) and OC I made for One Piece because I feel like I'm getting too weird to talk about this irl. It's extremely self indulgent.
So basically.
Nox (for the sake of this, the character.) grew up alone after her parents were sold into slavery. She escaped by the skin of her teeth and spent the majority of her days fighting to survive. She stole food, and one day, managed to steal the Witch-Witch fruit when she was 10.
It enables her to move things if she holds a small, stick-like object. She has a wand that she uses primarily, but even a chopstick would work!
The downside is it wears her out pretty quickly. She also doesn't know how it works or really how to utilize it properly.
At some point, she encounters the Strawhats and becomes infatuated with the skeleton musician.
I am very rusty, but I am constantly afflicted by ideas, especially for the Tragic Clown AU I have been working on. I am not sure if I'll continue this, but I really enjoyed writing it.
Pairing: Bon Clay/Galdino
Time Period: Baroque Works prior to Alabasta PRIOR TO Straw Hat intervention and VERY canon divergent, but the character beats are pretty much the same.
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Anomaly
By now, Galdino figured, the white around him had probably burned into his eyes in a way that had to be damaging. His glasses had slipped down his nose, and with his index finger, he pushed them back up to a more reasonable position. A thought occurred to him, his pen trailing down the expense ledger, that if he hadn’t spent the majority of his adult life staring at white pages, documents, endless forms, maybe his vision wouldn't be so miserably bad.
And his back too. He tried to be cognizant of his posture, but by hour five of a ten hour day, his back would be aching and in shambles. He tried his best to circumvent this as much as he possibly could because, after all, any sign of weakness to Sir Crocodile was a mistake you only made about one time.
A lock of his hair escapes from behind his ear, dark and long. His hair reaches down his back when it’s down, which it almost never is. Most days, he wore his hair in a high ponytail, the shorter pieces tucked behind his ears and streaked with gray, an unfortunate reality of not just his age, but the stress of his job.
And, truthfully, as he sat there, trying to figure out where the numbers began and ended, he reflected on how he ended up here. Stuffy accountant turned criminal accountant turned burning candle mercenary and still a goddamn accountant. That was what his title on paper was anyway as far as Rainbase was concerned. He assisted Crocodile with the legal side of things, money laundering, wire fraud, white collar criminal adjacent things, as well as the espionage and destabilization he more or less consented to. It didn’t matter, he thought, I still ended up behind a desk anyway.
At least his dad would be proud… Probably. Truthfully, he probably wouldn’t. Even if he shined his position, eliminated all the illegal things he was up to, he knew his position would be boiled down to paying the bills and doing the taxes for a greasy, smoke monster of a casino owner. Even just thinking about it realistically now, it turned his stomach. He wasn’t what he was supposed to be.
He sat up in his chair, still rubbing his eyes. His fingers drag a firm line down his cheeks, and he can feel the age lines along his cheeks. Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven years old, and he was still doing things he hated for people who didn’t give a shit about him. How was this where he ended up? How was this the progression of his life?
No, no, this was no time for a spiral. There would be time for that when has off the clock, and in his room tonight. He knew even if he didn’t see Crocodile here in the office, somebody was always watching for him. The walls have eyes, you know. Galdino sighs, pushing back from his deck. He stands, his knees creaking miserably, and he grabs the ledger he’s been working on. Galdino has resigned himself to going back to the archives and finding a new report to work on, maybe the payroll for the other mercenaries, something that’s less likely to make him pass away from boredom. He’d come back to this later.
His hands carefully folded the papers into the manilla folder, sighing as he left his work station. He can hear the distant clicks of pens, despondent sighs, and clicks of tongues from his other colleagues assigned to desk duty during the days when the actual work was light. He’d never connected with them, not any of them, not even his assigned partner for missions. She was quite literally a child, and while he didn’t hate Miss Goldenweek, he didn’t want to work with a child.
In fact, Miss Goldenweek was a rather sweet kid. He had a sort of older relative affection towards her, and he appreciated her mastery of her Devil Fruit, but he had no connection with her. He worried about her, sure, but he often felt like Miss Goldenweek had her life together better than he did. Really, quite embarrassing. He couldn’t allow himself to sit in that thought for long.
His eyes are low as he steps into the hall, a way he’s found to shrink himself and avoid the ever present gaze of the other agents that he absolutely does not trust. He’s focused on his shoes, his envelope, anything besides the hall ahead, when he collides with something, rather, somebody, in the hallway.
At once, Galdino is on his ass, his ledger falling to pieces around him because, somehow in his miserable state, he forgot to staple it. He winces, his back crying uncle desperately, and he knows his tailbone is absolutely bruised. The place in his heart that held self-loathing, and his own personal pity party is suddenly inflamed like a bleeding cyst, replaced nearly instantly with anger. Feeling sad was hard, but feeling angry? Oh, anger was easy.
His eyes flick up, and he’s ready to tear a new asshole into whoever happened to be in his way. He knows instantly what he’s going to say, deciding he will absolutely pull his number. He can hear it in his head, “How dare you? I’m Mr. Three! Mr. Zero will be hearing about this!”
But as his eyes focus, the words are ripped from him. His anger is snuffed out, reduced to sad, little embers in his core as his eyes fall on Mr. Two, Bon Clay, towering over him.
The air is sucked from the room for Galdino at that moment. His cheeks flush, and he processes that the seven foot tall person in front of him is bending down, nearly as far as they can go with a flexibility that makes his back muscles ache for them, offering out a hand.
“Oh, you big silly, Three!” They exclaim, their fingers wiggling in front of his face, “You really should watch where you’re going! Unless, you like nearly mowing down swans in the hallway!” And they punctuate this with a very loud laugh like it’s the funniest joke anybody has ever told, but it wasn’t even a joke.
Galdino’s eyes rove over this person. They are an anomaly. They are so absolutely different from any other person he has ever met, but especially, any other colleague in Baroque Works. In the beginning, Bon was a nuisance, a colorful distraction that Galdino didn’t understand how or why Crocodile tolerated. They had only been here a few months. Galdino wondered if maybe the stifling, oppressive nature of their jobs just hadn’t gotten to them yet. Bon was an entertainer in the casino on the surface. They worked the casino floor, bringing drinks to patrons, getting tips from being cute and flirty, and being an attractive addition to an environment that was admittedly really depressing if you weren’t drunk off your ass. Behind that, Bon’s real position was a pit boss, a bouncer, and an absolutely deadly adversary. Bon beneath a layer of flamboyance and, in Galdino’s opinion, gay stereotype, was a powerhouse and a Devil Fruit that made them a tool for Crocodile that he’d be asleep at the wheel not to take advantage of. That was what made them Mr. 2.
And here in front of him, in a pink pastel silk robe and blue body suit embroidered carefully with swans, dark brown bangs straight across their forehead, fingernails pink and an inch long, eyelashes black and mink, Galdino understands how much he is utterly fascinated by this person.
Despite his hatred of his job, Galdino loves numbers. He loves that with math, there’s always a solution. There’s a correct answer, and if you follow a process, you’ll get there. It’s clean. It makes sense. But Bon? Bon was art. Bon was messy. Bon was his opposite. Bon was a problem Galdino could not solve, and it made him feel like he was going insane.
He reaches out, taking Bon’s hand. It’s soft and warm, a rare feeling in his sterile life as Bon lifts him to his feet like they were picking a pillow off the floor. He stands there a moment, thunderstruck, as Bon kneels down and collects his paperwork for him.
“No,” Galdino says rigidly, watching as Bon collects the manilla envelope and stands back up, “But you really shouldn’t be loitering in the halls like this. If Zero sees-”
Bon cuts him off with a dismissive puff of air, holding out the folder, “You’re sweet, Three, but I’m fine.” They say this confidently, an eyebrow raised as Galdino takes his folder back, holding it against his chest like a shield. “My duties are done for the day until the evening when the drunk riff raff comes in,” They say this with a wide grin and a spin, like they’re looking forward to it, “Besides, if loitering in the hall means I get to see your pretty face, then maybe it’s worth it!”
Galdino stiffens. Bon flirts with everybody. Literally everybody who's an adult besides Crocodile because that’s a line they probably won’t even cross. Galdino can’t even figure out what they’re into, but he figures it isn’t serious. It can’t be. Again, they’re an anomaly. Galdino rolls his eyes with a huff.
“Yes, very cute,” He mumbles, his eyes moving to Bon’s feet, and he notices they’re wearing bright, magenta heels. Everything about them is loud, colorful, vibrant and so…. Them. He just doesn’t understand. He shakes his head, “But I don’t want to be the one getting into trouble. I value having all my fingers not broken. So, please.” Galdino gestures with one hand, “Move.”
Bon doesn’t move. They’re grinning wildly as they lean back into Galdino’s personal space in a way that makes him want to run for the hills. “You know, Three, I think you could benefit from letting loose sometime,” They say, head tilting as their grin only widens, “Are you available after eleven? I snuck a bottle of wine from the bar last night, and I’d hate to partake alone.”
Galdino’s mouth drops open, and he nearly fumbles his folder again. “Two!” He gasps, and he has to reel himself in to a whisper, “Zero will-”
Bon presses a finger over his lips, leaning closer. “Three, hush,” They say, their brown eyes shimmering with mischief. They pull their finger back and do a little, ballerina twirl, “Even we small folk deserve to enjoy life every once in a while. Why should Zero be the only one of us who can drink and smoke and have fun?”
“Because he’s our boss, and we agreed-”
Bon plugs their ears like a child, “I’m not hearing it, Three!” They press both hands on their hips, “I’m tired of this conversation. Come to the garden at eleven or don’t.” They huff, shrugging their shoulders as they step around Galdino, “But, maybe I just want a true friend here. Somebody I can trust.”
Bon’s words sank into Galdino as they passed him. They weren’t allowed to be friends, nothing. Crocodile made it very clear that any distractions from their work would result in punishment or termination in a very, very critical sense. When you work for Baroque Works, you have a very firm agreement with Crocodile that the secrets you learn will be physically unable to leave you if you ever choose to sever yourself from the organization. Another way to say it, you don’t get the privilege of leaving. Galdino’s nose crinkles. Another worry also ripples over him. If Bon was wandering around these halls looking for a drinking buddy, what if they asked the wrong person? What if it got back to Crocodile? Galdino let out a pained sigh.
“Fine, fine!” He gasps, exasperated and exhausted, “I’ll join you.” He whispers this, holding up a finger, “But do not go blabbing and running your mouth about this. You will get us both in-”
Bon grins, twirling again, “Yay! Oh, I am SO excited, Three! Finally, I get to see the accountant in rare form! Partaking in drinks and friendly companionship!”
“Stop,” Galdino says quickly, holding up his hands, “You’re doing entirely too much.”
Bon stops twirling both hands around their cheeks, “ Oh, but after months of loneliness, I have the promise of a friend! I’m so excited.”
And then, a thought occurs to Galdino. Out of all the officer agents, Bon Clay doesn’t have a partner. They’re alone almost all the time. He assumes he has Billions subordinates, but that isn’t the same. The Billions are usually too scared to interact properly with the officers. Bon doesn’t have anybody to talk to. Galdino, at least, has Miss Goldenweek. Even though the kid really couldn’t care less for him, she was at least another person who could commiserate and mirror his frustrations with their position in life.
And, as he looks over this seven foot, extroverted beam of light, he can see his own loneliness reflected in them deep down, even if Bon hid it under a veneer of flamboyance and cheer.
“A friend,” Galdino nods. A simple confirmation.
This makes Bon beam more, but they seem to get the hint that it’s time to go before Galdino bursts a blood vessel. “Goody! Eleven then! Use the west halls and stairwells, there’s less agents there who may cause us any issues,” They say with a flourish. For a moment, they stand still, and the wide grin is replaced with a genuine, soft smile, “Until then, Three.”
And they twirl off down the hall like nothing happened at all, humming loudly and out of tune.
As Galdino stood there, he watched them disappear in a pink blur down the sterile hall. He had never met another person like them, and still, standing there, Galdino realized he absolutely did not know what to think about them or how to feel. He knew in his core this was a bad idea, and the perfectionist in his soul was screaming. But the real part of him, the achingly lonely part, the part that could still feel Bon’s touch on his hand knew he needed to be in that garden tonight, or he would lose his mind and become lost in a sea of expenses and numbers that bled together into a black, disorienting orb until he eventually screwed up badly enough to end his own life.
He wasn’t willing to do that. Despite the burning misery that had been ever-present since he could remember, the little light in his soul yearned for more. Yearned for happiness, yearned for a life he could be happy in, and if he dared to think it, yearned for love. Maybe this was his chance.
Okay, I'll make two posts since this app likes to make me look STUPID. Anyway some Galdino love. Vincent's the only one down horrendous enough to be his chair.
Update to the one piece shrine. I got a few new plushies over the past few months + some stands from daiso this weekend! The Robin pin broke. That's why it's in a case now!
