suit of cups | iv

Of course you'd grow apart. You spent more time on your family's fishing rigs, sailing without him, and Hawkins found a friend in a tan cat mink. Faust was sixteen, like him, and Hawkins took the role of newcomers' guide that you once did. When you joined them, you and Faust pored over books the cat's parents collected while living in one of the North Blue's larger, more developed cities. Faust called them grimoires and good-naturedly defended against your questions about their origins and methods. Hawkins couldn't tell if you liked each other at all, but together you made an odd trio of teenagers with no choice for company but each other.

Or so he thought.

You stayed ashore more often as salmon season turned to halibut. As soon as Faust came over one especially foggy morning, the pair of boys started uphill to fetch you for a day of spellcasting and divination only to hear the familiar shriek of your laughter float up behind them—something they knew not to expect if you were only with your family. Hawkins followed Faust's gaze to the sight of you joined at the elbow with a girl.

That didn't make any sense. You didn't get along with girls just like Hawkins didn't get along with boys. Except for Faust. You were too rough and smelled too much like fish and no one had the patience for your stargazing and lectures that he did. Yet here you were.

He recognized the girl and the particular dirty blond of her hair from around the docks, so she must also come from seafaring stock. She noticed Hawkins and Faust before you did, and stopped in her tracks. You looked up, surprised. "Oh! I didn't know you were coming."

"I didn't know you needed warning," Hawkins said stiffly.

"Um." You seemed to hesitate, then unlinked your arm. "I can go from here. Thank you for inviting me."

The girl looked between him and Faust. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

To your credit, or in Hawkins' hopes, you said it coolly, with a knife's edge. You were fourteen and vibrant and tolerated offense no less than he did. As soon as the girl disappeared over the horizon, you smacked Hawkins in the funny bone. "Ow!"

"Sorry. I thought that was lower." You didn't sound sorry at all. "Can't you be a little friendly?"

"I barely said anything."

"Exactly. People think that's rude."

"Since when do you care what people think?"

"This is why my family doesn't like you."

"But you don't like your family."

You huffed, arms crossed. "Hi, Faust."

"Hi…" the mink returned awkwardly. That's when Hawkins noticed, in your hand opposite the one you'd hooked into that girl's, the handles of a large straw basket out of which peeked the edge of the quilt he recognized from your room.

"Did you spend the night?"

"Yes, it's called a sleepover."

"What's so special about that?"

"I've never been before."

"Yes, you have."

"That's not a sleepover. That's… we're too tired to move."

"So you slept over." Why call it something? You used to do so all the time, but something changed in the last year or two. Your parents went to church in town now while your grandparents refrained. They'd always been warmer toward him, anyway, and even as their memory and vision went Hawkins remembered their fantastical tales from the Grand Line of crocodilian sea kings and Devil Fruit users with great fondness.

"This is a planned thing, for girls. I've never braided another girl's hair before."

"What's wrong with braiding mine? That's how you learned, anyway." It was past his shoulders now. He liked that it kept his neck warm and how you played with it, or used to.

"You don't notice anything different about me?" you said dangerously.

Hawkins blinked, and inspected your face, tilted up toward his. He was almost a head taller than you now. Apparently, his father stood over two meters in height and towered far above his mother. All he saw when he looked at you was the familiar flush of anger in your cheeks and neck, your brows drawn downward and your teeth biting into your lower lip the way they did when you tested him, usually over planetary rulerships.

"You look tired," he offered. "Not much of a sleepover."

You tossed your hair over your shoulder with such force it whipped him in the face. "Girls want to hear their hair is pretty, Hawkins. It's in Dutch braids, you moron."

So that's why it landed like a two-inch rope, and flew behind your head like two hissing snakes as you ran uphill away from him.

Faust amused himself with the knitting basket in Hawkins' living room while Hawkins stared, annoyed, at the spread in front of him. It was full of court cards, but most glaringly what he'd come to think of as one of your cards, The Star.

Hawkins didn't think he needed to say your hair was the prettiest thing in the world to him. Black like a crow's wing, he thought when he saw it lately, and the scarecrows he made seemed more of an omen than any card. Black like the night sky, and on and near the full moon he could see the stars reflected in your eyes when you told him about constellations and named stars and their legends, Algorab in Corvus representing a sun god. Your hair curled like ocean currents with humidity and stayed straight in the winter, and as much as he liked Faust, he missed being younger and alone with you.

He thought saying so would embarrass you like you blushed after telling him his hair was pretty, like you always had. But the Ace of Swords at the top of the Celtic cross's tree told him what was missing between you two was words.

That, and Faust saying, "Instead of the cards, you could talk to her."

So Hawkins leaned against the stone fence surrounding your family's yard, keeping one eye on your bedroom window for light and another on refining his current iteration of straw dolls. He read in one of Faust's books about figural proxies for enemies made out of clay, and the dolls he'd idly made his whole life took on new purpose. They needed to be simple but still recognizably humanoid, and small enough to hide in his arm, though he could make any part of his body into straw. He knew his powers unsettled your mother and father, but there was precious little else he could do since they hated tarot more.

"Natulog siya," one of the many elders milling in and out said to him, and he understood despite not being able to respond.

Eventually, the shutters on your window opened and you called down to him, "Stay there." It was almost twilight then, and he was getting hungry. You emerged with your hair damp and loose from a bath, a steamer basket, and two spoons. "Well?"

"I'm sorry," Hawkins said quickly.

"For?"

Damn it. "I don't know, but your feelings are hurt, and I don't want to be the reason." The Queen and King of Cups were both in the spread, more sage and articulate in this realm than either of you.

You set the bamboo basket down on the fence, and the smell of sticky rice and sweet sausage wafted into his face as you took of the lid and stabbed a spoon into it like a knife for him to grab. "You're so full of yourself," you chided. He stuck a spoonful of rice in his mouth and waited for you to elaborate. You met his eye and relented. "It's not only you."

He swallowed. "Did she do something?"

You shook your head. "It's the others. And you didn't help."

Others. Come to think of it, he didn't ask you any more about the night you had or whether you had any fun at all, who was there besides the girl who accompanied you home, why you didn't tell him beforehand, why you even went.

"Tell me."

Ultimately, the townspeople treated you and Faust the same, nevermind your family's not insignificant history on the island. Your mother had a new obsession with correcting this, likely prompted by your friendship with the mink, and pushed for you to befriend churchgoing children even as you stayed home or avoided the ordeal at sea or at his house. It only made sense for you to attach to the only other girl from a fishing family.

"They suck, Hawkins, and they kept asking about you and—" Your face went red, and he couldn't imagine why. He knew he had a reputation as a heretic and something of a brawler, how he fared in fights now since his growth spurt. "I didn't like them braiding my hair."

Now he was really confused. You were so prissy and proud of those braids, but even with the fragrant spices of the meal you shared, he smelled your shampoo, stronger than usual, like you'd scrubbed your scalp raw.

Despite his uncertainty, he braced his hands on the stone fence and swung himself over.

"What—"

Hawkins pulled you into his arms, awkwardly, still unused to the size of the hand that nearly dwarfed the back of your head, and your spoon fell onto the gravel.

"Is this okay?" he asked quietly.

After a moment, you nodded against his collar.

"No one's going to touch you without you wanting it ever again," he said firmly.

"…You don't know that." It was a mumble, but he understood.

"Let me try."

You uncurled your arms from against his shirt and slid them under his elbows, holding him in turn. "Okay."