Chapter Text
The clouds rolled over the sky as I walked through the dense forest surrounding Honeysuckle Village even with the trees' coverage I could still feel the harsh wild that was always present here no matter the weather.
I had just finished a small fishing trip down at the shore since I'm out of food and I'm not quite ready to head into the village and deal with the people.
Glancing forward I see the cave I've been staying in for the past five months. It looks rather small from the outside which is why it's perfect for me to stay in at least until I leave here. No one other than a few kids ever try to go into my cave and even then they usually run away before actually entering.
“Stupid kids…” I grumble to myself as I cross my arms accidentally whacking myself in the head with my fishing rod in the process making me let out a small yelp and quickly look around just to be sure no one saw that.
The only thing to witness my fumble is a weird blue bird that looks like it's on fire. I think it's the biggest bird I've seen on Honeysuckle Island or anywhere if I'm being honest with myself.
As I look at the bird it starts to make a noise that sounds like a laugh and I jump almost dropping my things.
“Wha- Hey! Don't laugh at me you dumb bird!” I yell threw gritted teeth but there's no real anger behind my words. I'm way too distracted by the way it looks to be mad.
I've never seen that type of bird here before or anywhere for that matter, it might just be the wind blowing against its feathers but it looks like its on fire and its face-
Wait, is it wearing fucking glasses?!
Ok yeah I've officially gone insane.
I'm hallucinating a bird wearing glasses. This is the end for me.
I turn away from the weird bird hallucination thing and continue onward.
I walk into the cave quickly placing down my makeshift fishing rod and bucket full of fish walking over to my bag that's resting against the wall of the cave.
It was dumb of me to go out without my water pouch especially with it being so hot today but I was so focused on getting food for my supper tonight that I entirely forgot to bring it.
It only takes a second to find given I don't own many things in the first place, the majority of my stuff being lazily thrown about the cave in easy to reach spots.
I open the pouch and quickly chug about half of it before stopping and letting out a sigh the coolness of the water helping soothe the slight scratch in my throat.
Shoving it back into my bag I move over to the left to sit down on the pile of stolen blankets most of which are from the rich prick who lives on top of the hill overlooking the village.
I move some of the blankets over to reveal a tattered brown notebook with a finch on the cover picking it and the pencil that was next to it up and I start flipping through the pages each containing a drawing of a different type of bird with information about them written as well.
Finally I reach a blank page at the very end of the book and start to do a rough sketch of the bird I saw. Even if it was a hallucination from my lack of sleep and food, I still wanna draw it.
Time passes by quickly as I work away at the drawing until the nagging pain of hunger gets too much and I have to stop to make food for myself.
It's starting to get dark outside as I place down my book and stand up walking over to the back corner of the cave where I have a stack of sticks and branches I collected from the forest floor to kindle my fire. I pick up an arms full and make my way back over to the middle of the cave where my firepit rests. I crouch down and place the sticks in a pattern before reaching over and grabbing my lighter to start the fire next i stand back up and go over to my bucket that contains the three fish i caught earlier in the day and it doesn't take long for me to get two of them set up over the fire to cook.
Sitting back down on my blankets I stare at the fire watching as my fish cook the pangs of pain from hunger getting stronger as the smell of cooking meat starts to reach my nose. I shut my eyes and let out a deep breath through my nose trying to ignore the pain the best I can as I wait.
“That smells pretty good yoi” My eyes snap open and i let out a gasp as i swing my head to look at the entrance of the cave where a tall man with a fucked up hair cut stands causally looking around like he owned the place.
I scramble backwards desperately looking around for my knife that I only ever use to cut up my food. I soon realize that my knife is sitting on the rock right next to him and there is no way in hell I'm gonna try and grab that now.
“Who the fuck are you?!” I yell trying my best to sound intimidating and failing miserably as my words come out high pitched and squeaky making me cringe at the sound of my own voice.
The man puts his hands up and gets a lazy smirk on his face.
“Whoa calm down kid i mean no harm yoi” he says in a tone that just irritates me more. He's talking to me like I'm some scared animal who's about to run. Which to be fair isn't that inaccurate to how I feel at this moment but still! I don't enjoy being talked down to by a random man.
“That doesn't tell me who you are” My voice is shaking as i force the words out of my mouth
It's not like I'm particularly scared of this guy, it's my paranoia of how he could be perceiving me that's making me nervous. That realization is so ridiculous that I almost laugh honestly how stupid must I be to be more worried about if this random stranger who has burst into my home sees me as a boy and not if he's going to kill me or not.
“You really don’t recognize me?” he asks, sounding genuinely surprised
If I wasn't so nervous right now I would have scoffed and rolled my eyes at him. I hate self-aggrandizing assholes almost as much as I hate the Marines which is convenient since most people like that are Marines or pirates but I don't hold any particularly strong judgments of them.
I try to force some snarky remark out but I just can't get my words to work right now so I just shake my head and press my back against the cool wall of the cave, shivering slightly at the feeling of it against my arms.
“Well im Marco first division commander of the whitebeard pirates yoi”
I feel like someone punched me in the stomach.
Whitebeard is a name even the most sheltered person would recognize. The strongest man in the world. The captain of the biggest crew this side of the grand line. Now that I'm actually looking at him I see the massive tattoo of whitebeards symbol smack dab in the middle of his chest. How the hell did I miss that?! If this guy is the first division commander no matter how hard I try, I'll never stand a chance against him in any way.
“What do you want?” I didn't even realize I was talking until I heard my own words spewing out of my mouth.
He pointed at the roof of the cave confusing me for a second before I glanced up.
The moss? What could a pirate want with moss?
Most likely seeing the confusion on my face he answers my question before I can even ask.
“This moss is only found here and i read in a book that is can be used for medicinal purposes i want to see if that's true yoi” he pauses for a moment before continuing
“Im a doctor”
Ooooh you know that makes a lot of sense. Bits and pieces that I've heard from random people on the street or on docks come back to me now and I think I've heard of him and his skills as a doctor.
It also makes me calm down a little. A doctor wouldn't hurt a random kid in a cave right?
Im pulled out of my thoughts by the smell of burning meat
“My fish!” I yelp and scramble forward to my fire and now burning fish Marco completely exiting my mind as I am suddenly reminded once again of the pain of hunger in my stomach.
Thankfully my fish are only a little charred by the time I get them off the fire and onto the plate I carved out of wood when I first arrived here. I let out a sigh of relief before basically inhaling both of them in seconds and I regret not making all three as soon as I'm done.
Suddenly Marco's laugh pierces my ears and I feel a pang of embarrassment hit me.
“Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to get the moss?” I snap at him and shoot him a glare which just makes him laugh more. I feel like I should regret telling him he could come in but he's a god damn pirate he was most definitely going to do it no matter what i said to him.
“Alright sorry I just didn’t want to intrude on your space” he says before swiftly walking over to the back of the cave where the moss grew over the entirety of the roof and a little bit of the back wall.
With him on that side of the cave I rush over to where my knife is and grab it. I know there is no way in hell I could hurt him but holding onto it will give me some peace of mind. Marco doesn't seem to care much about it anyway as he only glances at me for a second before getting back to collecting the moss into a jar.
Where did that jar come from? Whatever doesn't matter.
My eyes only leave him for a second to glance outside only to be met with the pitch black of night, the light from the moon barely able to peek through the thickness of the trees. It would be pointless to try and run id just end up tripping on a root and breaking my neck. So instead I move to sit down and watch Marco to make sure that the moss is the only thing he takes. I mean he is a pirate after all.
“Your family live in the village?” I jump slightly not expecting him to talk to me again let alone ask about my family of all things.
“Why do you care?” I ask wearily while squinting at him.
“It's pretty concerning to find a random kid in a cave completely alone at night don't you think yoi?” he says looking over at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Fuck that's a good point” i mumble under my breath quiet enough that Marco couldn't hear it or if he did he just pretend that he didn’t.
“No they don't, it's just me here. I came on a supply ship five months ago" I don't know why I told him that.
I could have, should have even, lied and told him that, yes! I have an amazing loving family who knows exactly where I am so if you do anything the Marines will be on you in seconds! Not that there are any Marines anywhere near here. This island is too small and insignificant for the government to care about it. I mean that's why I came here but I'm getting off topic.
Maybe he has a devil fruit that makes people tell the truth. That would be pretty useful for a doctor then no one could downplay their injuries to you. I think I would be able to tell if he was using a devil fruit like that though since I would probably feel a strong compulsion to tell the truth but I didn't. Whatever, it's too late to take back what I said now.
Pulling myself out of my thoughts I look back at Marco just as he closed his jar that was now jam packed full of moss. He looks over at me and smiles slightly, I just cross my arms and continue to stare hard at him.
“Do you mind if I stay here for the night? The people in the village aren't too welcoming yoi and I don't have any camping supplies" he said while already sitting down on the other side of the fire leaning against a large rock.
I snort. That was an understatement. I'm about 95% sure that they would have killed me by now for living here if I wasn't a kid. Even then I still got rocks and sticks thrown at me by the kids of the village the few times I have gone into the village to get supplies legally.
Do I really want this pirate doctor with a messed up hair cut in my home though? I mean he hasn't done anything yet but i haven't even known him for an hour so there is no way I could tell if he will do something or not and it's not like there's anything dangerous on this island that could hurt someone like him other than the nipping of the wind.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I contemplate it really shouldn't be this hard of a decision but it is. Maybe it's because of my lack of human interaction recently or more likely I've gone completely crazy and the bird from earlier was just the first domino to fall.
Wait who am i kidding even if i asked him to leave he wouldn't listen i mean look at him! He's lounging around like he owns the place.
“Looks like you already made the decision for me” I grumble out while glaring at him like I could make him explode from just a look.
“But you have to give me any weapons you have!” I say as I point at him accusatorily realizing that even if i couldn't beat him in a fight ill have a better shot at getting away if he had nothing to attack me with.
“Don't have any” he said as he leaned back placing his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow.
I gawked at him in disbelief and let out an odd noise that I didn't even know I could make which made Marco chuckle.
Fucking asshole.
“That's bullshit! You're a pirate, you have to have some type of weapon!” I say as I jump up to get a better look at him over the fire and much to my surprise I couldn't see a single blade or gun on him. I thought I just missed it before with the rush of emotions and the distraction of his tattoo but sure as hell I see nothing.
Marco opens his eyes and smirks at me adjusting his position slightly to get more comfortable against the rough rock.
“I prefer to fight with kicks” he says matter of factly making me grit my teeth in annoyance. Why’s he always sound so smug and casual at the same time? It's frustrating.
“Whatever…” I mumble and flop back down on my blankets, completely giving up on getting any type of upper hand over him.
Him having no weapons makes zero sense to me but hey im not the one whose part of a yanko crew, he is so what the hell do i know about anything involving battle? Well I know a bit like how to hold a sword properly and how to shoot a gun but that's still nothing compared to him I bet.
I reached over to the small pile of wood next to the fire and threw a few pieces in so the fire doesn't get too low. Thankfully the cave is small enough that the fire heats it up perfectly but big enough that the smoke doesn't clog up the place.
“Hey kid?” i don't even look up from the fire as I let out a hum of acknowledgement as I reach over for my note book to continue working away at the drawing of the bird from earlier, not feeling comfortable going to bed just yet while he's still awake.
I'm still not sure if the bird was a hallucination or not…
“You never told me your name yoi” I tensed up automatically.
I haven't actually decided on a name for myself yet, given i haven't been talking to anyone for the past five months and there have been more pressing issues than what people should call me. I haven't really thought about it.
Realizing ive just been sitting here for who knows how long not saying anything, I shoot a look at the cover of my book staring at the finch etched into the cover of my favorite notebook.
“Finch” i say it so quickly i cant take any more time over thinking it.
Fuck that is so stupid. It's like I'm one of those shitty undercover people in a kids book smashing a name together from the nearest objects. At least Finch is a nice sounding name and it's my favorite bird so that's a plus as well.
“Thank you for letting me stay here Finch” I could hear the smile in his voice and it made an odd feeling rise up in me that I did my best to stamp down as quickly as possible.
“Yeah whatever, hurry up and go to sleep before I change my mind” I say as I flop down on my blankets with my back facing the fire I grab one blanket and throw it over myself.
I really need to get off this island so I can actually talk to people and I'm not acting like this because one of the strongest pirates in the world thanked me for something I technically didn't even agree to.
I think today was the weirdest day of my life and im not sure how exactly to feel about it yet