A Light Touch (Eustass X Reader)

Chapter 21: Pointed

Red hair and golden-brown eyes meant that Kid had pale skin. He wasn't lucky enough to tan, but he was lucky enough to have some envy-worthy clear alabaster skin. It was another one of those things about him that was conflictingly elegant when compared to his stature and general demeanor. The few patches of freckles on his shoulders only added to things.

Pale skin bruises. Bruises in such a way that you're suddenly aware that you don't have the exacting control over your prosthetic that you thought you had. Dapples of unmistakable Mouse-sized, hand-shaped bruises were obvious on his right arm.

Kid walked past the dinning room table as it went dead silent and meandered into the kitchen to get, you assumed, an entire pot of coffee. Walking by the table, however, gave all the sets of eyes that were watching him a clear view of the red scratch marks on his back. All the eyes on the marks, became all the eyes on you when Kid disappeared from view.

You had no idea what to say, but you were certain your face had never been quite so red, or quite so expressive of the phrase 'WELP'. Emma and Hip leaned forward and looked at you like a couple of cats who had just caught the early bird and its worm.

"Go scouting last night too, eh (Y/N)?" Emma asks with a grin.

"Little catch and release?" Hip muses, "Ya tagged him pretty good, those conservationist types would be proud."

"Ohmygod." You pulled the collar of your shirt up and hide your face inside your t-shirt.

"Guess Cap'n's not the only bruiser in the relationship," Emma adds before the two of them fall into fits of laughter.

"Teasing is a sign of affection from those two," Mosh says, even though his face is pink. "Don't pay 'em no mind (Y/N)."

"I know, I know," you admit, coming back out from under your shirt. "I'd ask you go easy on me, but-."

"The Captain already did. There's not a mark on you." Heat muses, sending Emma and Hip into renewed cackles as you set your head down on the table with a defeated thud.

The teasing stops as Kid comes back into the room. He sits down at the table, and when you catch his gaze, he gives you a quick wink. The only indication that he knew exactly what he was doing by coming down the way that he did.

During the meal there's more talk about the plans for that night, and everyone gets their assignments for the evening. There's a lot more to be done before another one of these raids happens, and you're surprised by the efficiency with which the crew operates. It's not that everyone does as Kid says without question – it's that by the time it's all said and done there's nothing left to question.

You're sure that meetings like this, where everyone tosses in their points and counterpoints, are the backbone behind the crew reacting to his orders in other situations. Eustass Kid, and any good leader honestly, couldn't lead such strong people as well as he did if he didn't care about them.

Even though you were well aware of his softer side, it wasn't really the same thing that held the crew together. Eustass' concern for his crew was loud, violent, and unapologetic. You're sure you fall under the same sort of category, before you ended up in your more pointed position.

It wasn't hard to see the crew as more of a family, than a gang. Granted, the kind of family that would hospitalize outsiders without much thought, but a family regardless.

A heavy metal mafia. Whose "captain" had been keeping you in, on, or near his lap for the last couple of hours since lunch. Thankfully, he had put a shirt on, not that he'd bothered to button it up, but it had made it more comfortable to sit with him. The way the crew reacted to it made you think it wasn't something they had seen him do before – no one teased you or him as they came and went from the living room where you had ended up.