suit of cups | vi

The Hawkins Pirates were effectively on hiatus after barely making out of the arctic circle with their captain's modest bounty of 40 million berries. Their shipwright, helmsman, and Faust were docked at a North Blue shipyard with their sloop for repairs and renovations. Since the cat mink's family moved south, Hawkins made his homecoming after three years away alone and under cover. It was difficult enough to stay in touch without some Navy captain tapping his communications, but the last he heard from you was a vague "studying!"

Now Hawkins knew why you withheld so much detail.

"What the hell are you wearing?" you said, nodding at his pauldron.

"That's what I was going to say." He ripped the Marine cap off your head, sending your hair flying. "Are you in debt?"

"Hey!" You stood on your tiptoes and hopped up and down to try and get it back, to no avail. Hawkins finally stopped growing and now stood half a meter taller than you. You huffed. "I can explain."

You hadn't lost your mind and joined the Navy, but allowed a cadet to think he was recruiting you so you could steal his maps and course texts.

"So why does that entail dressing like a Marine?" Hawkins grumbled.

"It's his," you said with a shrug, and he froze. You didn't notice, or pretended not to. "He hardly has anything. It's his CO who knows more 'cause he's trying to transfer to the G-1, and—"

Hawkins threw the cap into the harbor like a boomerang.

He expected you to smack him in the arm like you used to, but instead you crossed yours and looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," he deadpanned.

"I'm sure."

You said it with a laugh in your voice, not upset at all, and grabbed his hand in yours, interlacing your slim fingers with his.

You were still so warm, like sunrise in winter.

It was past sunset. Hawkins wore a cloak to hide his distinctive hair and brow, but his presence at your side did plenty to identify him anyway. The nearest Navy outpost, where he assumed your mark was stationed, was a few islands away. On the walk to your home you murmured to Hawkins that they inconsistently watched his mother's house since he got his bounty, thought nothing more than a pair of Marines visiting town with an obvious detour to its outskirts.

If your immediate family's tolerance for him waned through the years, it was never worse than now with a bounty to his name. Their elders, on the other hand, welcomed Hawkins back like a son, a foolish, presumptuous part of him whispered as the pair of you helped them set up a low dining table in the yard. His mother joined after her shift was over to eat her fill and went home ahead of him for additional caution.

"You're ready?" he asked quietly as you hugged him good night.

You nodded. "All packed."

There was no way of knowing precisely when, but the plan was for Faust and the others to sail by without dropping anchor some night around the new moon, which gave you a few days to say your goodbyes—more bitter than sweet, with your mentor dead—and Hawkins a few days' rest, and time with his mother.

A more ostentatious sort of pirate would have returned with jewels for the women he loved. Instead he was as awkward and practical as he'd always been, still a boy at twenty-three. The one time Hawkins went to the trouble of sending berries home was for the funeral of the first tarot reader he saw; otherwise, he buried exchanged gold in a location known only to him and his mother.

For you, he only had the world.

After meeting the skeleton crew of Hawkins Pirates who'd returned so far, Hawkins showed you to your room like he wasn't quietly floored by the changes made to the ship that had carried him for the better part of three years. One of them was a cramped office stuffed to the gills with a twin-sized bed and built-in bookshelves.

"Not fair, captain!" Faust had crowed.

"She's not bunking with you brutes," Hawkins said, feeling color rise up the back of his neck at his own hypothetical, you in a cold dorm full of men. Yes, he trusted his crew, but—

"How proper," you teased. "But you couldn't have recruited another girl?"

You unpacked a trunk full of ephemerides and other references, celestial and terrestrial, while Hawkins leaned against the door frame. There was so little space that he would only hinder, and really he should leave you alone and explore the newly-christened Grudge Dolph for himself. He was a self-conscious at its styling, but their shipwright was enthusiastic. But he preferred to examine you.

You knew your legs were pretty, didn't you, with how you stuck to short skirts, and the one you wore now hiked up as you tiptoed to reach the high shelves. You wore a bit of makeup, now, just lightly lining your already huge eyes so they looked massive. And you wore heeled boots that boosted you a mere few inches, not enough to make a difference if he wanted to kiss you—he did, desperately—but enough to draw a gloriously long silhouette for such a short woman. His favorite thing of all, your hair, was wavier than ever before, dark as the arctic sea.

"You're staring," you said without turning around.

For some reason, he didn't feel ashamed. "Can't I?"

"Just you," you said cheekily. "Captain."

Despite your tone, he frowned. "You don't have to come. I know things change—"

"Oh, don't act like you're giving me an out," you said. "It's us, isn't it?"

Those words were the strongest binding spell Hawkins could think of.

"Besides, my grandparents think we eloped."

Hawkins truly thought he misheard. "Excuse me?"

"That was functionally a wedding dinner. They're already confused I didn't go with you right away. We can't turn around now."

While he was lured by the thought, he shook his head. "I drew The High Priestess for you."

"Mm. And you're taking it to mean I'm doomed to spinsterdom?"

He was a little caught out, not used to hearing such talk from you. "You're meant for greater things. The Grand Line."

The pirate king's right hand.

Hawkins didn't verbalize such ambitions, but his crew and onlookers whispered their opinions as he conquered his home sea.

"And did you have any such reminders? Warnings?"

You didn't react to the confession that he never stopped drawing three cards for himself and three for you, every day, for three years. Sometimes he made a cross, as if your paths could meet while he sailed further and further from you. Like you were still conjoined, you gripping him like you didn't want him to leave, and he almost took you with him anyway.

The more accurate his personal readings seemed, the more leeway he had to worry about you when the Five of Coins proved to mean a dry spell for his growing crew, or the Nine of Swords mocked him after a sleepless night. Justice glared up at him for you one day, and he hoped it worked in your favor; he couldn't help wondering what could possibly be meant by the Two of Cups without him there.

The day he saw you again, he drew the Two of Swords and the Two of Wands—two different crossroads. For him, a difficult, contradictory choice; for you, the precipice of a journey.

"The Devil."

"Because you're known for your excesses."

Hawkins chuckled, to put you at ease more than anything, because he saw stranger and stranger characters as he approached the Red Line. He wouldn't be surprised to see a gargantuan, horned beast peering down at him with a torch or bat in hand.

"I have one last thing for you," he said.

"This is already so much, Hawkins, really—"

"The left desk drawer."

You slid it open and Hawkins heard the clatter of its contents sliding across the wood. You gasped as you held it up to the light, a silver dagger with an amethyst at its hilt, sheathed in a black leather scabbard.

"It will be dangerous," he said seriously. "You need to hold your own to be a pirate, but I'll protect you when I can."

When you were both younger, he might have promised more—he did. But now he knew the sea had its price.

You nodded. "Is there someone who can teach me to use it? Faust—"

"Me," Hawkins said. "You can cut me. I won't bleed."

"Um," you started, "how?"

He left your door cracked as he went to tour his new-old ship.