* Buggy's POV *

Day-to-day life on board a ship, pirate or otherwise, was never all that easy. To many - who didn't know any better - it all looked like fun and games, but it really wasn't. Buggy had learnt this from a young age; since the tender age of nine in fact, back when he became an apprentice with the crew of the Roger pirates. Although prone to regular outbursts due to his short temper, he had worked hard and been a fast learner. Ok so part of him had craved some form of validation, but he had always felt at home when at sea; almost as if the ocean itself was part of his life-blood. A cruel irony, considering he had lost his ability to swim once accidentally eating the devil fruit.
The worst part was, prior to that he had been an excellent swimmer. But of course he had, he'd been taught by the best in almost all things.....Gold Roger himself.
The legendary pirate king had taught him what was required of all good seafarers; pirate or even none-pirates. To be a skilled mariner required talent, toughness, and quite a lot of knowledge.

An able sea captain would ideally have to have years of experience in order to hand, reef, and steer - that is, manage the sails and act as a helmsman to direct the ship. They would also be able to knot and splice the rigging aloft, keep lookout, use the lead which was a means of sounding the depth of the ocean, work on a gun crew, manage the machinery of the deck, and on top of all that.....probably sew moderately well in their spare time too!

But still, all of which, Buggy had learned to do. From his humble beginnings; learning to tie knots and sew, he had progressed and eventually even mastered the specialist, indispensable abilities required by a first mate or captain, such as when and how to order the setting of the sails, stand watch, and in some cases even perform difficult mathematics of celestial navigation using a sextant.

It had been damn hard, grueling work. But he had persisted and mastered it all by the age of seventeen. However, he hadn't been able to reach his full potential thanks to a certain red-haired shipmate who somehow always managed to overshadow and upstage him.

Shanks.

Shanks had always been Gold Roger's favorite, and the one who always gained the most praise whilst Buggy himself was overlooked and seen as nothing more than an oddity. Like the ship's jester, he was the brunt of everyone's jokes, and his large red nose didn't exactly help matters either. It was as if the fates had conspired cruelly against him, for him to literally have been born a clown.

Had he let the cruel hand of fate beat him down though? Nope. Hell no. On the contrary it had simply spurred him on, making him more determined than ever to make a name for himself. To be the flashiest, most flamboyant pirate ever to have appeared on a bounty poster. And so, he had set out on his own, even choosing to embrace his physical deformity by adopting the persona of a clown.

Sure he'd shed a few silent tears when he had attended the public execution of his former captain and mentor. But he'd never regretted his decision to leave and form his own crew; providing a somewhat safe haven for fellow outcasts and misfits. Even if life had provided him with the opportunity to be a marine rather than a pirate, he never would've been accepted. His appearance alone wouldn't enable him to fit in. Some of the differences and divergences that made piratical life more preferable to legal seafaring anyway was the danger, adventure, and the less strict rules to abide by. But above all else, piracy in the most part was more appealing for the profit potential. Amongst other, unique incentives. Such as the recognition, fame and notoriety.

Did he enjoy being bad?

Eh. Kind of.

Life had made him embittered and somewhat callous, that was true. He thrived on the fierce reputation he'd built for himself. Because for Buggy, he craved respect, and as he'd never been respected by anyone other than his own crew, he had to settle for fear instead. If people wouldn't respect him, then they would have to fear him. It was the next best thing.

Deep within the dark depths of his brittle heart, he had once harbored the naive need to feel wanted and even.....loved. But now he was a fully grown man fast approaching his mid-thirties and had come to accept that no one could ever truly want a freak like him. So he'd constructed a wall around his heart. An impenetrable fortress built with the intention of keeping all others out.

It was undeniable there had been that weird, deep-staring thing with Amby the previous night. But that was nothing. Clown or no clown, he was still a red-blooded male who had enjoyed the company of women over the years, so he was not immune to his baser instincts; such as lust. But....he recognized the stirring of the blood when he experienced lust - which in truth had become less and less frequent during the past few years - but what he had felt with Amby had not been anything nearly as simple as that. No. If he didn't know better, he might've even suspected that unexpected tension when their eyes had locked could've been considered them sharing a "moment" something of which was a complete novelty and mystery to him. A type of shared connection that resembled a faint longing, and it had tried to poke and prod at the place in his heart where he no longer permitted feelings to go.

Of course he had quickly killed the moment. Whatever potential feelings he may have sensed developing, he had shut down, locked up and buried them deep inside. Hell, he would've buried them in a box and thrown them into the bottom of the fucking ocean if possible.

He was no doubt just being ridiculous anyway, letting his all-too-wild imagination run away with itself. She was his map and nothing more. His ticket to finding that little fuckhead, and his merry band of fuck-wits. Not to mention, he wanted to find the One Piece!
But on the other hand, the more he thought about it, Amby had professed to being a fan of his too, which naturally had stroked his somewhat fragile ego. So that was a bonus. But in spite of all the bravado, he was still struggling to fully come to terms with actually having a real fan. One that claimed to want to serve him, no less. Had he been younger and more of a degenerate he might've taken full advantage of the situation, but no.....he knew she would never want him like that. Besides, he was also less inclined to let his libido rule his head these days.

As he stood up on the top deck with Alvida, charting their course towards the grand line, much to his consternation he found his concentration repeatedly wavering as his gaze scanned the lower deck at regular intervals.

Damn it.

He had been eagerly anticipating this voyage for so long. Finally, after so many wasted years and failed attempts, he was on course to the grand line! To fulfill his destiny. And to seek revenge on that rubber-prick straw hat pirate kid, he should've been fully focused on the journey that lay ahead. So why was he so damn distracted?!

Naturally he argued back-and-fourth in his head. Overthinking and trying to psychoanalyze himself. It was necessary to keep a close eye on his best asset, he attempted to reason with himself. Amby was his best shot out of here, his literal map to the grand line. So of course it was only natural that he was reluctant to let her out of his sight, especially when she was mingling with the other riff-raff of Alvida's crew.

Yes. That's all it was, he was convinced of that.

After finally having mastered the tying of various knots, the young woman had pouted when he'd then suggested she work on her sewing skills. He didn't explain to her that was how he had began his career on board a ship. Instead he'd poked fun at her for sulking, and ordered her to get on with it. Mostly, it was just to keep her safe in his absence, as to his annoyance he'd then been called by Alvida to assist with navigating. So, Buggy had begrudgingly left Amby in the charge of Poppoko; Heppoko's younger brother, but the clown pirate was quietly confident that the witless oaf wouldn't mess with her, not when he knew she was strictly off limits.

"Just where are you getting all this information from anyway, clown?" Alvida suddenly inquired, not bothering to hide her cynicism either, as she rudely interrupted his thoughts.

"Hm? Sorry what, I didn't catch that?" Buggy replied honestly. For once not playing dumb and stalling for time. His attention genuinely did keep wandering elsewhere; especially now that Amby had disappeared from his sight.

One look at Alvida clearly conveyed her rapidly increasing annoyance with him. Her black brows drawn together in a deep-set scowl, and the pursing of her lips.

"You need to pay attention and stop ogling your little play-thing! I asked you where are you getting your information? What makes you so certain that the straw hats are headed in this direction?"

"Ogling!" He practically spat out the word defensively in disgust "you think I'm ogling? Listen, honey, you really don't know me well enough to accuse me of doing something that I'm definitely not doing!" He wasn't even deliberately trying to avoid her questioning now. He was genuinely incensed by her remark. As if she'd hit a nerve.

"Oh really" the female pirate rolled her eyes. A habit that made Buggy sometimes want to punch her squarely between them, "your head has been on a swivel ever since you came up here. You know, considering you only met her a couple of days ago, you sure do have it bad!"

"Have. What. Bad?" He punctuated each word, slow and deliberate due to him trying to restrain his fiery temper. He knew exactly what she meant. What she was implying. And as he affixed her with his hardest glare, he sensed she knew he was practically daring her to actually say it, and wouldn't she just live to regret it if she did.

His fierce look however, coupled with his deathly cold tone of voice, must've made her reconsider riling him any further. Instead she heaved a sigh of exasperation and averted her eyes back to the route he had plotted out on her map.

"Forget it. You still didn't answer my question though"

Forcing a fake laugh, Buggy also returned his attention to their task, and vaguely responded with one of his most favored explanations, "Oh come on, Vida. You know I've got eyes and ears everywhere"

<<—————————————>>

Eyes and ears everywhere.

Hm. Well, for once he had resisted the urge to detach an ear and hide it away in the vicinity of Amby. An eye would have been better, but unfortunately would've also been way more noticeable. In the past whenever he had done that he'd donned a patch (and rocked the look in his opinion) to cover the grisly sight of his empty eye socket, but he'd been with his own crew then. He didn't have an eyepatch with him now, and even if he had, he just knew that Alvida would find it suspicious him suddenly wearing one.

So, for the rest of the day he had refrained from looking for Amby. Not that Alvida's taunts had anything to do with him deliberately avoiding her. Well, maybe just a little. But, it was for his own good mostly. He couldn't afford to start obsessing over her safety just because of that damned map tattoo. He had to try and relax and have faith in his notorious reputation. If any of the crew members messed with her, they would pay with their lives. They would know better than to touch her when they all knew she belonged to him.

When he finally entered his cabin much later that evening; after having deliberately avoided going straight down there, even after most of the crew had gone to bed, he walked in to find her lay on the bed, looking visibly tired but not asleep. A part of him - no pun intended - had been secretly hoping she would be sleeping, so finding her awake instantly irritated him for some reason. The fact that she was in his bed only served to annoy him even further.

"What did I tell you?" He snarled, slamming the door closed with excessive force, which visibly startled her.

".......I......um, a-about what—?"

"The bed! Last night I said you could take the bed for one night, you were sick, so I took pity on you. You're not sick now so shift your ass, sweetheart, because one way or another I'm sleeping in there tonight, unless you wanna share, and it sure as shit will be a tight squeeze with the both of us in it!"

His command prompted her into immediate action - he assumed probably due to his threat of sharing the narrow cot with her - so he watched with a measured amount of satisfaction as she hastily got up and scurried passed him.

"Sorry, Captain. I forgot."

"Sure you did. No, I think you were hoping I'd just leave you be, well I'm no soft-touch!"

"No, truly I did just forget. You've told me so much today, about.....ship stuff....my head feels like it's overloaded and going to explode"

"And did you learn anything else? Did Poppoko help you with the different sewing techniques?"

Amby quickly turned away from him, now seemingly focusing intently on the hammock. She appeared to be considering it from all angles; trying to determine which was the best way to climb into it without falling straight back out again.

But Buggy recognized blatant avoidance when he saw it, and suddenly without thought or any hesitation he was grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face him, as if he wasn't even in control of his own actions.

"What happened? Did he say something? Did he do something?"

"H-he....had me climbing the rigging" she gulped out, her eyes rounding in alarm at having been grabbed by him so forcibly.

"Climbing the rigging!" He echoed, feeling the all-too-familiar sensation of his blood beginning to boil, "you're not experienced enough to be climbing the rigging, it's too dangerous!"

"Yeah no shit, captain. I told him that but he didn't seem to care. Maybe I'm not cut-out for any of this. I was shaking like a damn leaf.....even though he was right behind me—"

"Oh I bet he was. You do realize he had you doing that just so he could take a look up your skirt, right? Fucking pervert!"

Her cheeks reddened, giving them the appearance of two rosy apples, "That did actually cross my mind, but I figured he mostly just wanted to humiliate me, because I'm not one of the crew"

Buggy was sure he could hear the sound of his own teeth grinding now. He was grinding them so hard he began to fear for his back molars.

"Perhaps, but he more than likely just wanted something to picture tonight, for when he's jerking off in his bunk"

She visibly flinched at the vulgarity of his words, but Buggy didn't care. He was blunt and to the point. He wasn't prepared to sugarcoat the nauseating truth of the matter for her.

"......ew, what makes you so sure? He might not even find me attractive." she argued, stubbornly refusing to accept the very possibility.

"Oh please, are you really that naive? Other than Alvida, you're the only woman on board this ship. Of course he's going to check your ass out when it's right there in front of him!"

"I'm not naive, that's the very reason why I dressed in men's clothes for years!"

"Then it's too bad you didn't dress like that for when you came here. I don't get it. If you've dressed like a guy for years you picked a pretty bad fucking time to suddenly decide to stop......." he fumed, but then his sentence ground to a halt as his curiosity piqued, "......hang on a second. Why were you dressed differently that morning?"

A sudden feeling began to stir in the pit of his gut. His intuition and instincts already providing him with the answer. She didn't have to speak a word, her cheeks were practically glowing red now, and the way her eyes lowered in shame; avoiding meeting his own, confirmed his suspicions.

"That's it...." his voice dropped to little more than a whisper, as he digested the bitter pill of realization, "....you thought if you gave yourself a makeover, flashed a bit of leg and batted your eyelashes that you could sucker me in to taking you with me"

"I—-"

"Don't bother trying to deny it!" he gripped her face firmly in his hand and forced her to meet his venomous gaze. The eyes that no doubt now resembled two glowing coals, as his anger continued to burn through him, "Dont insult me with your lies!"

"I wanted to.......get your attention, t-that's all. I know you're not gullible—"

"Oh Amby, Amby, Amby.....you don't know me at all. You might think you have me all figured out, but you don't. I mean, what would you have done if I had taken the bait? Because sometimes darling, when you play with fire, you gotta be prepared to get burned"

Before she had time to respond he released her face but crowded her back until she couldn't back-up any further. With no place left to go, her back hit the wall with a thud, but still he invaded her space until he was almost pressed up against her. He made sure to plaster on his most well-practiced sinister grin, relishing the fear in her expression as he placed his hands either side of her against the rough wood; trapping her. This was all for his own twisted amusement. He was furious with her for trying to play him like a fool, so messing with her a little ought to teach her a much-needed lesson.

"I-I......wasn't intending to try and seduce you....I just wanted your attention, I swear—"

"Ooh, cross your heart" he sneered down at her derisively, "actually I do believe that part. I'm no idiot. The whole thing makes no sense, why would a pretty little thing like you want to fuck a freak like me!"

His last sentence was not a question, it was a statement, but this time she didn't flinch at the vulgarity of his words. To his surprise she actually forced herself to look directly up at him then: her chin tilted upwards in defiance.

"You use that word a lot.....but just because you think you're a freak, doesn't mean everyone else does too"

Buggy had to admire her audacity and courage. Despite struggling to steady her breathing, she was still challenging him; a trait that he couldn't help relishing. He didn't understand why he did, because it also vexed him, so he hated himself for it.

"I know what I am, you little shit. And you're not going to convince me otherwise with any of your bullshit"

"It isn't bullshit! You don't know me either, Buggy!" She snapped back at him, "And I don't think you're a freak!"

Purposely he allowed his gaze to drop to her lips for added affect, and chose his next words deliberately, "well.....I guess there's only one way to find out if you really mean that, huh"

** A/N **

Hey guys! So sorry for the delayed update. Finally moved in to my new place, but still got a lot of work to do, so in order to get the chapters posted more quickly I may have to write shorter ones just for a while.

Anyway I thought I'd try something different this time by writing from Buggy's POV, and I wanted to give a bit of insight into his way of thinking and back-story. I could alternate between the two, every chapter, or just write from his perspective occasionally - so please let me know what you think. If you'd rather it just be her POV that's fine also.

I know this