Chapter Text
The point of drinking when they made berth was to counteract the fact that Katsuki’s legs no longer felt stable on land.
Give him a squall, raging waves, howling winds.
Give him jagged rocks too close to the surface to navigate, moonless nights, a heart-pounding chase across the ocean.
Anything but immovable, dusty, dry cobblestones beneath his feet.
He knew that at some point as a lad he’d happily ran across them, played with his friends, perfected the art of picking a rich man’s pocket, but as of late, the land made him feel nauseated as the sea made land dwellers feel.
He bumped his shoulder against something soft as he and his crew squeezed their way through the slowly building crowds in the thoroughfare. A quick glance back showed it to be a head of red and white hair and nothing further. So Katsuki moved on.
His first mate often joked that his instability on land derived from the fact that he’d so often offered his soul to the sea when she’d pushed his ship into peril; he no longer belonged to the land when the very essence of him tasted of sea foam. His blood was more salt now than iron.
So he’d gone to drink with his crew while his ship received some well-earned upgrades and repairs. She was a sturdy thing, outfitted with weapons a ship her size shouldn’t have been able to hold; that’s what made her dangerous, and their crew so successful.
In truth, had he any desire whatsoever to settle down, especially on land , Katsuki knew there was nothing to stop him. He had savings stashed all over the Riau Islands, all the way out to Borneo; had people high enough up the chain of command to matter who owed him favors. Should he wish, Katsuki could pass his ship onto a midshipman and retire to live among the Orang Laut, never setting foot on land again and steering well clear of the islands on which he’d been born.
But the thing was Katsuki loved life on the high seas, he couldn’t get that kind of rush anywhere else, or with anyone else. He’d seen some of his crew fall to the wiles of land-bound creatures. Pretty things, talented things. Katsuki had happily indulged in their gifts, but the thought of tying himself to one sounded about as appealing as getting keelhauled, so he’d dip his wick and be done with it most of the time.
The port was busy now that the daytime dock workers had gone home and the creatures of the underworld had climbed up to reclaim their territory. Merchants, traders, buccaneers, pimps and whores and pickpockets. All of them mingled and mixed, touched and imprinted on each other, if only for a night.
In truth, Katsuki loved the land just for that; for the shallow, drunken soup of the down-and-outs that simmered on the edge of every ocean and sea. There was something genuinely gritty about humanity that Katsuki could appreciate; people in port cities were survivors, rugged, cultured in their own cruel experience.
Two inns and six pints later, Katsuki was stumbling again and cursing the goddamn cobblestones. Most of his crew had slowly been shucked as the night went on, some finding comfort in the arms and bosoms of familiar bodies, others happy to test new waters. Something made Katsuki’s hair stand on end, just there at the base of his spine, so he turned, eyes quick and careful to scan the swirling crowds.
They landed on a pair of eyes, mismatched grey and blue, before their owner widened them and ducked out of sight.
“Tsch,”
Not a pickpocket then, or anyone more sinister; far too inexperienced. And thus, not Katsuki’s problem.
Another pub, another crewmate lost to the haze of lust, and Katsuki considered possibly seeking out some company himself. Alcohol had clearly not helped with his balance, and the rocking of two bodies tangled in sweaty sheets reminded him of the eb and flow of the tides beneath his beloved vessel. If he couldn’t be aboard to ride her, he’d find the next best thing.
Ports knew just who they catered to, regardless of which part of the world those of Katsuki’s ilk decided to dock in; ports offered rum, they offered trade, they offered places to meet, and they offered people to fuck.
Sidestepping with an awkward shuffle into a crooked lane offered Katsuki a perfect view of the available company for the night and he… wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t as though there weren’t beautiful people here, both men and women wearing so little they may as well have worn nothing at all, all pouting and playful and teasing as Katsuki walked past them, it was just… none of them caught Katsuki’s attention for long enough to matter. No one immediately spiked that rush of heat through his gut that made it clear that his body had chosen without his mind’s intervention.
Maybe he hadn’t had quite enough to drink, then…
Another shiver of the feeling of being watched, a memory of mismatched eyes… Katsuki shook his head as another shiver rubbed sensually across his spine, one that felt nothing like the cool discomfort of being followed.
Now those eyes, perhaps, he’d have liked to watch widen with pleasure, those eyes he’d have liked to see fill with desire, pupils pushing out the irises to the very edges until little but lust remained.
“Are you unwell?”
Katsuki looked up, fixing his gaze upon the person who’d spoken. He was alone now, the rest of his crew busy letting their grunts and moans and whispers mingle with the rest of the orgy the port had inevitably become.
It took Katsuki… a little bit. Until he was sure he was seeing one person and not two, though even when the image stabilized, the speaker still looked like two people squished into one.
Two-toned hair, different colored eyes.
Ah. Them. That one.
But what was weirdest of all was the enormous fur coat they carried in their arms, cradling it like a child despite the fact that it looked like it would swallow the queer little person whole if they were to put it on.
Would be worth a fortune though, damn. Was the kid stupid, carrying that shit around?
“‘M fine,” Katsuki grunted, waving the stranger away. “Nooo worries.”
“You’re having trouble walking.”
“And you’re having trouble hearing,” Katsuki snapped, allowing one shoulder to graze the rough wall of the nearest building as he leaned against it. “I said I’m fine.”
The odd two-toned person—Katsuki wasn’t actually sure what gender they were but that hardly mattered much—tilted their head and furrowed their brows, but said nothing else. Well good, Katsuki wasn’t here for conversation. He just… wasn’t quite sure what he was here for anymore.
“You stumbled when I saw you earlier, as well,” the person continued, either purposely ignoring Katsuki’s radiating displeasure at being addressed, or merely oblivious to it. “But not nearly as much.”
“You fuckin’ stalkin’ me or what, clown-haired mutt?”
A blink, those pretty eyes narrowing, then widening, then narrowing again, as though trying to see Katsuki more clearly.
“Is there something wrong with my hair?”
“Yeah, it’s on you,” Katsuki told them, pushing himself to start walking again. He’d go sleep on the damn ship, fuck it, the land was clearly not feeling hospitable today.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Your face doesn’t make any sense,” Katsuki mumbled, before turning on his heel and almost losing his balance entirely. “Also, the fuck you carrying that coat for? You looking to get jumped?”
The person squeezed their arms around the fur protectively and Katsuki snorted, pivoting away from this strange annoying person once more. “Word’ve advice, sell that shit quick or put it the fuck away. Otherwise you’re gonna end up fuckin’ dead, or worse.”
He didn’t stick around long enough to hear an answer if there was one. Again, wasn’t his damn problem.
Time did something stupid after that. Katsuki would be sitting with his feet dangling in the water one minute, and blink and find himself in the bowels of another inn the next. And every time those eyes and that stupid hair were in his periphery somewhere. Was he being stalked? Did that moron want to sell him the damn coat and think Katsuki was his best bet? Fuck that.
At one point, Katsuki must’ve fallen asleep because he was woken by a ruckus on the table over; one of the voices sounded familiar, that drawling monotonous cadence of that odd two-toned whoever… Katsuki blindly threw his cup in their general direction. It seemed to be enough to shut them up.
The next time he woke, it was because someone set a heavy hand against his shoulder and shook it.
“Cap’n.”
Katsuki grunted, fingers spreading and curling against the tabletop.
“Kats,” ah, his first mate then. No one else would dare. “Need a hand gettin’ back?”
“Fuck off,” Katsuki mumbled. “Go fuck whatever you were fuckin’... before this… off. Again. Or whatever.”
“Heard tell there might be some heat,” his first mate added, and that was enough for Katsuki to at least peel one eye open and shove his cheek against the scratched wooden tabletop to glare at the man. “Grapevine. Might be nothin’.”
Might be nothing, but most likely something. Port-folk weren’t the type to spread rumors, they had no spare time for idle gossip. And heat would… be inconvenient. Besides, his vessel needed upgrades but she could sail without them; getting out of dodge wouldn’t be impossible in her current state.
“Fuck,” Katsuki rolled his shoulders before shoving the heels of his hands against the table to arch himself up off it. His back stretched and his spine popped, and it was enough to feel a little more human, if anything. “Fuck it. Fine. Fuckin’... get the rest of the goddamn extras together, we raise anchor in an hour.”
“You got it, boss.”
Katsuki’s eyes blinked out of time with each other and he tilted his head back and forth to ease the crick out of his neck. It felt like someone had poured sand down his throat before crawling into his mouth to die there. Not awesome, but also not the worst he’d ever felt.
When he’d managed to focus his eyes a little better, he glanced up at the table that had disturbed him before.
And there they were. Again. Fuckin’ half-n-half. Only this time, they looked incredibly uncomfortable. Katsuki wouldn’t have cared a damn lick if something hadn’t caught his eye: that enormous fur coat wasn’t in the kid’s arms anymore. It was hanging over the chair of one of the burly, smelly assholes trying to strong arm them into a game of poker. It was clear that the idiot was too weak to fight them for it, maybe he’d lost it in cards?
“Moron,” Katsuki mumbled. But his words immediately drew those two-toned eyes to him, brows furrowing above them in an unspoken plea. They glanced to the man, the coat, back to Katsuki again. Those pretty lips of theirs pouted into a little bow. They looked like a kicked puppy. God-fuckin’-dammit, this wasn’t Katsuki’s problem. It wasn’t his damn problem that that idiot got what was coming to them by carrying that expensive thing around. It wasn’t his damn problem that they’d lost their loot in cards like a newbie. It wasn’t his problem that they might get more than robbed blind tonight. It just wasn’t.
But.
Katsuki couldn’t get himself to stand up, to leave the inn and the pretty two-toned idiot behind. He just couldn’t. His damn heart was weak for the underdogs, for the odd and interesting. Hell, his entire crew was a collection of misfits he’d picked up from one port or another, or ones who’d tried to hitch a ride running off from some unwelcome circumstance.
Katsuki was an asshole, he was a cad, but he also had a bleeding goddamn heart when it came to some pathetic kid needing a rescue.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Oi,” he called, catching the table’s attention and swinging his feet up to rest on the tabletop so he could look at the group of sailors between the scuffed toes of his boots. He jerked his chin to the fur. “That ain’t yours.”
One of them gave Katsuki a once-over before snorting and puffing out his chest. “You got something to say about it, punk?”
“Yeah, already did,” Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest and jutted out his chin further. “If it ain’t yours it’s stolen.”
“I won that fair an’ square.”
“If you’re hustling a kid who’s obviously never seen cards in their life, you’re some kinda weak,” Katsuki replied, rocking his chair back. “That’s not even a hustle, that’s just pathetic.”
“You gonna lecture me about morals? ”
“Nah, but I’ll play you for it.”
There was a moment of tense anticipation before something snapped, and the hulking mass of a man spread his cracked lips in a smile to reveal a checkered grin of rot and gold.
“Aight, pretty boy, let’s play for it.”
Katsuki took his time vacating his table and moving to join the reeking group keeping the red-and-white naive idiot imprisoned with little more than their smell. It was pretty overwhelming; Katsuki could barely breathe through his mouth around them.
The game was standard, the cards worn, and Katsuki cocked his hip against the edge of the table since there was nowhere for him to sit and no one polite enough to move and make room. He kept close enough to the weirdo so that no one else was touching them by sheer proximity.
Hustling cards was second nature to him, he knew every trick in the book. The problem with hustling hustlers was that they knew how to break the same rules Katsuki did just as well. The only difference was that Katsuki was just better at it.
Two hands later, he had the coat and most of the pathetic pool of accumulated winnings. He could have kept going, he could have cleaned them the fuck out without batting a hooded eye, but he also knew how to stop when he was ahead, when to stop tempting fate.
Besides, he had his own ship to catch.
“Can’t say it’s been a pleasure,” Katsuki said, hefting the coat into his arms. Good fucking god it weighed as much as a person, what the fuck?
“Ya even know what you got there, boy-o?” one of the sailors asked him. Katsuki shrugged.
“My winnings. Which I’ll be taking now.”
“That there’s a pretty winning,” another piped up, before the table broke out into jeers and whistles that Katsuki ignored with a roll of his eyes. He stepped back and jerked his chin at half-and-half for them to get up and follow.
When they made it outside, the cool early morning air and the sobriety that had come with deliberate concentration made it easier for Katsuki to shove the coat into the younger one’s chest.
“I told you you’d get dead or worse, you fucking idiot,” he muttered. The kid stood dumbstruck, as though Katsuki had just revealed the goddamn meaning of life or something.
“You… you’re giving it back?”
“Yeah I’m giving it back!”
“But… why?”
“Huh?” Katsuki gave the kid a look before rounding on them, pressing a harsh forefinger to their clavicle hard enough to make the kid wince. “Coz I ain’t gonna steal some naive rich kid’s shit! I got standards! Now get the fuck outta here before someone else steals that thing from you, coz I ain’t gonna rescue you a second time. One time is shit luck, the next is you being a dumbass.”
He turned to go, when a small hand snared out, reflex-quick, and grasped Katsuki’s wrist. “Wait!”
Katsuki was about to give the kid another earful, because for fuck’s sake he wasn’t about to be left marooned on this godforsaken port because he missed his own ship leaving, when he found his mouth occupied.
Soft lips, slightly cooler than his own pressed against him in a chaste kiss. Katsuki made a sound, something somewhat undignified at the back of his throat, and the kid pressed closer, the heat and softness of the coat squished between their bodies as they did.
And ya know what? Fuck it. Fuck. It. Katsuki had done his good deed for the day, check mark left, karma points earned, so he was absolutely gonna kiss back if the kid was giving it freely, why wouldn’t he? He’d imagined those eyelids fluttering, that pretty mouth parting on sweet little sounds, so why not?
So Katsuki slipped a rough hand into two-toned locks and gripped tight, before letting himself plunder the mouth that opened to him.
Katsuki awoke with a groan, low and deep in his chest, and nuzzled hard against his pillow.
A pillow that felt furrier than usual, softer than it usually did after a night on land.
He blinked, waiting for the haze to dissipate around his vision and to clear some things up and found… more questions.
One major question in particular.
“Good morning,” the pretty half-red-half-white gray-and-blue-eyed kid was sitting cross-legged on Katsuki’s bed, just watching him sleep.
“What the fuck!”
The other blinked, confused, and cocked their head. “Is that not how people greet each other after slumber?”
“Yeah that’s… wait,” Katsuki shoved himself to sit up, wincing when his aching head sloshed about with whatever swill he’d managed to find a bottle of the previous night and empty before falling into bed. “Did we fuck? Did I fuck you?”
“You brought me to your ship,” the other replied, still infuriatingly calm. “And to your bed. You did speak of consummation, but your words started to slur together and then you lost consciousness. I wasn’t able to wake you so I’ve been waiting for you to do so on your own.”
Oh. Nice. Smooth, Bakugou, Jesus. Katsuki rubbed his eyes before clearing his throat. Well, at least he hadn’t started something he couldn’t finish.
“Why didn’t you just go then?” he asked. “When I passed the fuck out? You think I’m gonna pay you or somethin’?”
“Oh,” the other blinked, those eyes wide and almost inhuman in their ridiculous curiosity. They were pretty, they were so damn pretty it was doing Katsuki’s head in, but there was something in the pit of his stomach that made him feel… dread. Something was just wrong.
“Well,” the person continued, bringing a hand up to stroke through their hair. “I thought that since you proposed marriage through my customs and I accepted, you would like to do the same process with yours. And—”
“...what?” Katsuki sat stock still, mind reeling, hazy images of the night before floating up to the surface like dead bodies in a bog, gray and grotesque. “I did… I did fuckin’ what?”
“My coat,” the younger one said, indicating the fur that Katsuki had woken up nuzzling. “You won my freedom and returned it to me. I’m bound to you forever by the laws of my kind. I think… I’ve heard landfolk call this kind of match marriage? Are my terms out of date?”
Oh, no. No, the word was right; the situation was anything but.
Because how. In the name of Poseidon's butthole. Did Katsuki get married without realizing it? How drunk had he been?
And what was the kid going on about, landfolk? Their kind? What the fuck was that about? What had Katsuki even–
And then a thought, niggling and nervous, peeled back some of the confusion and revealed something even worse: blatant realization. How many times had Katsuki warned his crew to steer clear of merfolk and sirens? How many times had Katsuki beaten it into them to be wary of deals too good to be true and people too beautiful to be human? How many times??
And now, in all his drunken chivalrous glory, he’d gone and returned a coat to a beautiful, ethereal creature who’d been haunting him the whole night before. A coat of fur, that weighed as much as a man, that looked like it would engulf the poor little stupid thing whole.
He’d heard tales of selkie folk who’d lose their coats, and thus their freedom. Possessing a selkie coat was keeping their soul trapped on land to do your bidding. And he’d taken that pact, broken it with a hustled card game, and gifted that freedom right back to the hapless creature. A gift like that spoke of endless devotion, of promises fulfilled.
A gift like that for the selkie was as good as a gold ring on Katsuki’s finger.
“Oh God,” Katsuki groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Oh fucking hell!”
No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Katsuki Bakugou was now a married man.
