Title: Communication Between Manly Men about Manly Ships and Phallic Things
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: one-sided Paulie+Iceberg (kind of. It's more like, Paulie+Ships or something. I dunno. He's boat sexual.)
Word Count: 1,197
Warning/s: Um… vague spoilers for the Water 7 arc, I guess?
Summary: The only things that matter to Paulie.
Dedication: Seca- I hope this works. O.o
A/N: Theme for this request was "one-sided crush." I have never, ever, EVER written these characters before. Ever. And I know this makes absolutely no sense. Well, it makes sense to me, but that just means it won't make sense to anyone else. I'm sorry for the weirdness. O.o

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There were very few things on the planet Paulie considered himself serious about.

One was ships. Because he built them, and with great pride. Also, he was good at it despite how young he was. He loved his job, even if he was the lowest of the low on the ladder of carpenters in the whole company, even if most of his time was spent hauling lumber and watching the foremen work.

Another one of the things he was completely serious about was the morality of young women in this day and age— skirts kept getting shorter and shirts kept getting smaller and how was an honest man supposed to get any work done when all he could see was skin and skin and skin for miles?

The last thing he was really and truly serious about was paying his bills on time.

Well, okay, maybe not really. But having two things in life to be serious about was good enough. It wasn't three of three but the best two of three that ended up winning in most cases anyway, right? Right.

In any case, those being the two things he really felt passionate about, Paulie didn't really know how to function outside the realms of his job and his odd personal sense of morals all that well. To be fair he didn't really have to. Often.

There was the occasional date he agreed to, mostly because it was an invite for a home cooked meal or something, and when he went on those it was usually one disaster after another because he either ended up berating his hostess for her scandalous sense of style or talking about ships.

"Oh my god you live in a world of sin!" and "So, do you like riggings?" were neither of them, really conducive to building any lasting sorts of human bonds.

But that was fine enough for him—people who didn't like riggings weren't really worth knowing anyway. So he worked hard and worked his way up and one day, when Iceberg asked him to come join him for dinner, he had stars in his eyes and an "I told you so" on his lips because this was proof that all that really mattered in life was having pride in your work as a carpenter.

It had gotten him dinner with Iceberg after all, and that was the most coveted thing in all of Water 7.

They sat down in the Mayor's mansion together and Paulie tried not to be wide eyed about it, because he'd admired Iceberg his whole life (worshiped maybe, but semantics didn't matter) and didn't want to make an ass of himself.

Iceberg cut his steak and didn't get into the reason why he'd invited Paulie over tonight right away. "Maa…please eat," he started instead, and gestured for the blond to join him.

Paulie reacted with something like a blush and a jump and a "yessir," and started eating. He didn't realize how wide eyed he really was, which was probably for the best.

It was silent for a while, and they ate and Paulie thought he ought to maybe say something, because during all those dinners he had with girls before, they'd sort of laughed or chastised him for not being a good conversationalist.

"So," he started, a bit awkwardly, and wiped his mouth with his napkin, "Do you like riggings?"

"I love riggings," Iceberg responded, like that was the most natural conversation starter in the whole wide world.

Paulie absolutely had stars in his eyes. Nothing could be more perfect. Who needed shameless women who didn't even know the difference between a keel and a hull? There was no way this night could get any better.

"So, I wanted to ask you if you'd like to become one of Galley-La's foremen," Iceberg started conversationally. "I know you're still young but we've worked together for a long time now and I think no one's better fit for the job."

Paulie suddenly recalled one of those dinner dates with a rather especially shameless woman and how she'd jumped on the table and pulled her shirt apart and crawled towards him right when he was in the middle of talking about steering mechanisms. He'd lectured her about how wrong it was for breasts and legs to be so lewdly displayed in the middle of conversation afterwards, but right at the moment he was beginning to understand how she might have felt—he wanted nothing more than to jump onto the table and grab Iceberg-san and talk about steamship engineering all night long.

He managed to control himself however, and blurted: "God take me now." He couldn't really explain what came over him right then—his whole head felt hot.

Iceberg however, only blinked at that. "Well, you wouldn't officially start until next week."

Paulie blinked back. "That's fine. That's perfect. Next week. Take me next week."

Iceberg nodded. "Excellent. I'll inform everyone of the decision as soon as possible."

"Great," Paulie agreed.

Dessert was brought to them soon thereafter and silence descended again. Paulie thought that he was beginning to understand that shirt-ripping table-crawling date of his a little better with each passing moment—it was like he was going to burst.

"How do you feel about bowsprits?" he asked, as he took a bite of his chocolate mousse.

"I prefer just having a nice figurehead," Iceberg responded, thoughtfully. "Mermaids are pretty."

"Hmm," Paulie responded, and felt just a tad bit disappointed at that, he didn't know why.

"You prefer a bowsprit?" Iceberg asked, and arched an eyebrow.

Paulie fidgeted a bit. "I'm very serious about them," he admitted. "But uh… only on some ships. Not all of them. You can't just stick one of those on any old galleon and have it work, I guess."

Iceberg looked thoughtful. "Well…good for you then."

Paulie left that dinner feeling both buoyed and slightly troubled, and when he saw Tilestone the next morning at work he asked the other man if maybe he should learn how to talk about things other than ships.

"What for?" the big man asked, and wiped sweat from his brow.

"I don't know—so I can talk about other stuff with people? The last girl I had dinner with said I had no communication skills."

"People who don't like riggings aren't worth knowing anyway," the older man said.

"Yeah, but what if they like figureheads more than bowsprits?"

Tilestone blinked. "Well, I guess that's just a matter of choice, eh?"

"I guess," Paulie sighed. "But I think Iceberg-san likes figureheads more."

His coworker shrugged. "Maybe if you make really nice bowsprits he'll learn to like those just as much."

Paulie blinked. "I didn't think of it that way."

He wasn't quite sure why, but the very idea gave him a immense feeling of hope. He worked doubly hard from then on with the intention of maybe one day making a nice, thick bowsprit with the perfect tapered tip, one that Iceberg-san, when he saw it, would like better than any old scandalous, seashell-bra wearing Mermaid figurehead.

In the meantime, all of Paulie's dinner dates unanimously agreed that he had some serious communication issues.

END