I HATE YOU DANYELLASKYLER. Mmkay?
Title: The Female of The Species, Part I
Word Count: 4,835 (HOLY CRAP!)
Rating: PG-13?
Pairing: SmoAce, but not.
Disclaimer/Warnings: Uh - so danyellaskyler gave me this cracked-up plotbunny yesterday with Smoker who's become fem!Smoker, but Ace doesn't know, and Whitebeard does. Because I think she's mental. Did I say that? Sorry. Anyway, the bunny bit me, and this is part one. Hopefully of only two parts. And I haven't even explained why he's a woman yet. urgh.
Summary: See the warning. Really, there's no way to describe this.
Day 1
It had been a busy few months for Ace. Escaping Impel Down, getting some seastone, hunting down Blackbeard and beating the crud (and significant quantities of blood) out of him… well, he was quite looking forward to a nice rest back on his division flagship, or maybe Pop’s flagship. Blow up a few Marine ships, chat up some of the nurses - just relax, really.
So it was kind of a surprise to get back to Whitebeard and find the Moby Dick buzzing with gossip which he was completely lacking information on. And annoying. Definitely annoying.
He frowned, and poked Komura-san’s arm. “Something up?”
The man glanced over, still shuffling his cards, and shrugged. “There’s some chick in the holding cells. Been there nearly a week.”
Ace waited. “And?”
“We~ll,” the man drew out, leaning back and squinting at the sky. “Apparently - not that most of us have seen her, or nothin’ - apparently, she looks kind of like Pops. And the old man's having her treated real well, despite her bein’ a Marine prisoner - no torture or nothin’.”
Ace raised an eyebrow, slipping his hands in his pockets. “How old is she?”
“Old enough to be his daughter, if he had her old, or granddaughter, if he had kids young,” Komura replied boredly, never one to get into the gossip as well as most of the crew. Pirates were generally a chatty bunch, but Komura was a private person, more through a distinct lack of interests in other people’s lives than any shyness or stand-offishness. Ace privately regarded him as a bit of a prick, but most of the crew did as well, so it didn’t matter.
“Hm,” said Ace thoughtfully, considered this information, decided that unless Pops gave him orders about it than it had little to do with him, and went off to find some food.
Besides, he really didn’t want to imagine the old man ever having had sex. Ick.
Day 2
A day after being back, Ace’s division flagship arrived near the Moby Dick, and dropped anchor. There were people for him to assign, reassign, promote, demote, get drunk with, or more than one, which kept Ace firmly on the Moby Dick, where he was happy to swap stories and get congratulated on killing Blackbeard. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to hear the full tale of what he did with the drinking straw, the ping-pong ball, and the stuffed marmoset.
Ace got drunk multiple times, sobered himself up with his Devil Fruit multiple times, and failed to get laid multiple times. Damn teasing nurses. The fourth woman to approach, however, he didn’t flirt with, because this was Nokano-san, who apart from having trained on Drum Island, also acted as one of senchou’s top aides. She could also slap really hard.
“Drink?” Ace offered politely, managing not to spill the bottle down her front. The men he was drinking with groaned at his not taking the opportunity to soak her, and then flinched back as Nokano narrowed her eyes slightly and pursed her mouth.
“No thank you, Ace-san,” she declined as one man fell to the floor, twitching, under her gaze. “I have orders for you, from senchou. Please make yourself sober and follow me.”
“Now?”
She slapped him.
“Now,” Ace decided, and burned away the alcohol in his system (what a waste).
-
“Afternoon!” Ace beams as he approaches the cell holding the prisoner, although he very pointedly doesn’t look at her much. It doesn’t matter whether she looks like Pops, so he’s not going to go looking for similarities. Honest.
Much.
The woman looks at him with such intense loathing that Ace wonders whether he killed her kitten once or something. “Portgas,” she growls, honest-to-fuck growls, and Ace has heard his name said like a curse-word before, but he generally knows the reason why.
“Oh, you know me?” he asks, feeling rather amused, and then mentally kicks himself, and says, “Oh, right, you must have seen the posters. Anyway, Pops' put me in charge of you, so I’m going to be outside your cell for most of the time you‘re here. Apparently I need a ‘break’, not that I do, I bet Kai put him up to it, that bastard,” and then stops muttering because the woman’s looking at him like he’s nuts.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t really like Kai, and, uh, the feeling’s mutual.” he explains lamely, and mentally kicks himself again.
“Are you sure you’re the second division Commander?” the woman asks pointedly, sounding disbelieving and a little disgusted, and Ace grins at the question.
“Yep! Any case, wake me up if, I dunno, you’re making an escape attempt or something, okay? Night!” He grabs the chair that’s sitting outside her cell and slumps down in it, arms crossed as he leans back and prepares to sleep.
The woman sounds like she wants to hit him, which she probably does, because she chokes out, “Aren’t you meant to be guarding me?”
Hm. Maybe? Ace frowns, opens his eyes, and considers this. “I’m not sure,” he admits honestly. “Pops just said I’m in charge of you, so I don’t know whether he meant to actually, y’know, guard you, or just make sure you eat and stuff.”
“And you didn’t think to ask.”
“I’m still kind of drunk. Not much,” Ace hastens to add, “But a little.”
The woman rolls her eyes, and Ace takes advantage of that to give her a quick once-over. She does kind of look like senchou… not a particularly feminine build, though still obviously a woman. Good muscle-tone, not disgustingly so, jawline perhaps a little too strong to classify as beautiful. Handsome, maybe. Early thirties, but the neck-length, greyish hair means she could be younger and it’s just aging her in his eyes. Average breasts, six, maybe seven out of ten.
Ace wouldn’t mind waking up with her, though she’s older than his usual sort, but the permanent glare on her face makes him think twice about turning on the full range of Ace-Patented-Charm. Besides, if she is related to the old man, Whitebeard will probably kill him. Slowly.
That wouldn’t be good for his promotion prospects.
Handsome Prisoner Woman is definitely a high-ranking officer, despite the casual clothes she’s wearing - probably courtesy of the nurses, there aren’t many female pirates in senchou’s crew - because her stubborn I’m Still In Charge Here, Pirate Scum bearing and tone are firmly in place even as she grumbles what are probably insults under her breath, slouching back against the cell wall.
“So, name?” Ace asks brightly.
She stares at him, as if she thinks he’s an idiot. Oh, right. She does. “What.” It’s a statement, not a question. Actually, it’s more of an order. Definitely high-ranking. Ace wonders whether she’s that authoritative in bed NO, DON’T GO THERE.
“Your name,” he lays out patiently. “You know mine, seeing as you were kind enough to say it when I came in. What’s yours?”
She stares at him some more, only the glare’s gone now. She looks… taken aback. “You don’t know?”
“Uh - no? Pops hasn’t told anyone.” And I forgot to ask that, too, Ace doesn’t say, because he’d have to kick himself again.
The prisoner seems to struggle with something in her head, eyes flicking to the side. “Commodore,” she allows finally. “Commodore... Tashina.”
“Wow,” Ace says, impressed by what an utterly crap lie that is, but not finding the heart to point it out. “That’s a really bad name. Did your parents hate you? Ah, no offence!”
She Glares. Capital g.
“Oh, I guess that was pretty offensive, huh - sorry.”
Well, at least there’s a good thing to ‘Tashina’ thinking he’s an idiot; she relaxes almost imperceptibly, which tells Ace she thinks he’s dumb enough to believe it.
“So, Tashina-san,” he cheerfully says, “how’s your week been?”
“Shut the fuck up and sleep, pirate” replies Tashina, who obviously has no sense of humour, so Ace shrugs and follows her helpful advice. Whoever she is, he decides before he drifts off, she’s a Grade-A bitch, but fun with it. He has a few tricks for dealing with those sorts of people…
Day 3
Tashina, as she still thinks he thinks she’s called (try saying that ten times fast), is a little friendlier the next day, because she stops glaring at Ace a couple of seconds after he comes into the prison area that morning, and goes back to glowering at nothing in particular.
“Can I call you Tashy-chan?” Ace asks, wide-eyed and sweetly, and can’t resist a snigger at the look of Hell Hath No Fury that she sends him, which only increases when she hears him laugh.
Still, you can’t scare a division commander - or a D - with a glare, no matter how bad it is, especially because a D just takes it as an invitation; in this case, to wind her up some more. “I’ve been talking to the nurses,” he continues, “and they say that if you like, you can borrow some of their makeup. Apparently that sort of thing cheers women up-”
The empty food-bowl is, apparently, shallow enough to fit through the cell bars, and Tashina is a frighteningly good aim, because it manages to leave a small cut on Ace’s shoulder as he dodges. “Maybe not,” he allows, and grins happily at her, which makes her give a strangled noise of something which to Ace sounds like his victory, ha!, and she clenches her hands likes she’s imagining them around his neck.
“You. Are deliberately. Pissing me off,” she whispers, low and husky and vicious, and Ace hears every word perfectly, just as she wanted. Another notch on the Proof of Officer list.
“Just a little,” he smiles, plopping his chin in one hand and lounging on the seat, enjoying her futile, simmering rage. “C’mon, don’t tell me you just want to sit around doing nothing all day. I bet you’re bored out of your skull. Poker?”
Glare, Glare, Glare, like a damn machine. “I don’t play with pirates.”
Ace pouts. “But all sulk and no play makes Tashy-chan a dull girl!”
He manages to dodge the tray, because he’s expecting it, though the furious roar of “I DON’T SULK!” followed by, “DON’T CALL ME THAT RIDICULOUS NAME, YOU PIRATE TRASH!” is a wonderful addition.
Maybe he should thank Kai after all?
It’s interesting to see the chains binding her are seastone though, because despite that she looks physically stronger than most female Marines, they still only use the seastone chains for either people who are unbelievably strong, or Devil Fruit users, and Ace guesses she’s the latter. Paramecia, probably; he knows of every Logia and quite a few of the Zoan in the Marines. Doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous.
Another mental kicking, because she’s a Marine, and a high-ranking one. Obviously she’s dangerous, despite her current situation. That’s fine. Ace has always enjoyed playing with fire.
Day 4
By the next day, they’ve reached an unvoiced agreement. Ace doesn’t call her Tashy-chan (or any variation thereof) and holds back on the teasing, and Tashina condescends to play a few rounds of poker.
She has a master poker-face, utterly emotionless when she wants, but Ace can keep grinning through every round, no matter what hand he’s dealt, and being a Logia teaches a lot about self-control, mental and physical. Interestingly, she seems to have as fine a control as him. A particularly dangerous Paramecia or Zoan, perhaps?
Whatever. Point is, they’re pretty much equal, and instead of making this boring, it only sucks them in more - Ace knows it’s because she can’t stand losing to a pirate, and he just finds it hilarious to see the flicker of annoyance every time he wins - so fairly soon the game turns not just to trying to improve themselves, but to messing each other up with distractions.
“How long am I going to be held?” Tashina drawls lazily, but Ace keeps his smile fixed, and only waggles his eyebrows at her.
“As long as the old man wants you held,” is the reply, but then his grin widens and he flutters his eyelashes in mock flirtation. “But if you’d rather I held you, my Tashina-san…”
She makes a noise of amusement, as though not sure whether to throw something else at him (not that there is much - Ace has learned his lessons and makes sure nothing is left in the cell after her meals, now) or laugh.
Tashina, he muses, has certainly lightened up a bit after she won the cigarettes in the second round they’d played. Ace doesn’t smoke (not even when he’s on fire, ha ha, yes, he’s heard all the jokes, shut up now) but it wasn’t hard to notice the small, fluttery motions of her jaw as if manipulating a cigarette that wasn’t there, or the fixation she had with rolling the spoon around her mouth. Mm, oral fixation. No - he had to resist the urge to make jokes.
They’re halfway through the eighth game when Nokano-san and a pair of her subordinates appear, dressed in their usual working clothes (Ace sometimes wonders who designed them, but he’s scared to ask), and the Chief Nurse says coolly, “We need more blood, please.” That isn’t a request.
Ace watches with bemusement as Tashina scowls and shoves one arm through the cell bars, the lesser nurses working with practiced movements as they cuff the hand to one of the bars and start drawing blood with a syringe. They’re all on alert - none may be up to Commodore-standard, but the least of them would do a good job of kicking an Ensign’s ass, even in those short dresses. A perfect knowledge of human anatomy and a skill with scalpels is good for several things.
They leave as swiftly as they came, Nokano-san raising an eyebrow at the playing cards and nodding politely to Ace, and Tashina draws her un-cuffed arm back into the cell. A pity, Ace think, because it was a very attractive arm. Soft, pale skin wrapped over lean muscles. He wonders what her legs look like under those jeans, and then mentally kicks himself again, which he seems to be doing a lot, lately.
“Give blood often?” he questions curiously, trying to sneak a look at her cards, and the woman snorts and pulls them closer to her.
“Shut it and play, Portgas.”
He rolls his shoulders, honestly interested now. “No, really. Are you ill or something?”
“Or something.”
“Huh.” Ace considers his own hand. It’s a bad one. “Is it contagious?”
Tashina raises her head and looks him slowly over, head to toe, before a small smirk touches her eyes and mouth. “I wish.”
Ace can’t hold back the laugh, even as she throws down her cards and kicks his ass, and he finds himself thinking there’s something pretty about her when she smiles.
Day 5
Ace is disappointed (and surprised by the fact he isn’t surprised by that) when he doesn’t get to go to Tashina’s cell first thing in the morning, because Pops wants to speak to him.
“I hear you’ve been getting along with the prisoner,” the old man announces, and Ace manages to not look at Nokano-san, who’s standing emotionlessly by his massive chair, arms crossed demurely.
“Uh - yes. Should I not, Pops?” He finds himself hoping it’s not true, because much as he’d like to sail off and beat a few people senseless, maybe visit Luffy, he’s kinda liking the time he spends with Tashina. She’s sarcastic and biting, and has an intelligence - a mix of raw cunning and refined intellect - that’s a rare thing among pirates, even most at a high level. Oogetsu, for example, may be second in command of the third division, but Ace has never bothered to start up a conversation with him, unless it’s about when to scream ‘CHARGE!’.
Plus, she’s not bad to look at. And those moments when he can get her to smirk, and that perma-scowl vanishes? Damn, that’s good.
Whitebeard studies Ace with a strange gleam of what could be amusement in his eyes. “It’s fine. Has she told you anything about herself?”
Ace blinks. “Well - only her name and rank. I haven’t been, uh, interrogating her or anything.” Oh, shit, was he meant to have been? Was there some implication he’d missed thanks to that oh-so-tiny, practically-not-there, honest, drop of alcohol dancing around his bloodstream? Ace’s stomach suddenly drops at the thought of hurting her, but it’s fine, because the old man waves a hand and says:
“That’s fine. What name did she give?”
Aha. Was she actually his family? Did senchou know who she was, or was he playing along with a fake name too? No, otherwise she’d have given that ridiculous name without thinking about it. So Pops definitely knew, and hadn’t spread the name around, which was odd, because she’d been a prisoner for nearly two weeks now. You’d have thought someone would have learned it from the newspapers, at least.
“Commodore ‘Tashina’, Pops,” Ace replies, with a quirky grin as he says the name, and the Emperor gives a loud chuckle of laughter.
“Tashina, huh? Well, that’ll do. Now, brat, I think you have a task to get back to, right?”
So Ace finds himself hurrying over to the cells, confused as what the heck is going on and what game the old man’s playing, but he can’t help but cheer up when Tashina looks up as he comes in and - just a flicker before she can hide it - she actually looks pleased to see him.
They only play a couple of rounds of poker before Tashina starts teaching him how to play Badger in the Port, which is the weirdest-named game Ace has ever heard of, and one of the most confusing, which is probably why it’s a Marine game. Tashina is forced to admit she doesn’t know whether the ‘Port’ in the title is meant to be a harbour or the wine, but agrees with Ace that whoever thought up the original rules was probably fairly drunk.
Her hands, Ace notices as she deals, are intriguingly graceful. He likes to watch, so he does.
Day 6
This morning, Ace is reading the paper to her as he has the last few days - with his own insightful (read: mocking) comments, after which they’ll debate (read: bicker) over whichever articles are of interest to them. Ace doesn’t let Tashina have the paper because a) she could push the pages between her chains and skin and possibly get her Devil Fruit powers back - they’d learned that one the hard way - and b) because he finds it funny to leave her guessing as he reacts dramatically to articles before reading them, acting like every one is far more shocking than it is, and then mournfully insisting that he can’t possibly let her see them.
What? Her glares are half-hearted at best now, and he’s pretty sure she find it nearly as funny as he does. Besides, those glares kind of suit her.
He’s just finished reciting the guests at some boring international banquet in as excited a tone as he can manage, leaving dramatic pauses and inserting exclamations of awe as necessary, which he can see is leaving Tashina struggling not to laugh as she slouches against the wall, arms crossed (which does interesting things to her breasts, not that he’s looked or anything), when he turns the page and spots the main article there.
Ace pauses, brow furrowing as he speed-reads it, and Tashina seems to realise immediately that he’s not play-acting this time. “What is it?”
“Huh,” murmurs Ace, feeling a strange sense of disappointment. For himself and for Luffy, as well as for the man who’s the focus of the article - he deserved more. If not a longer life, than at least an article before some stupid state meal. “Just someone I fought once.”
There’s silence, enough that Ace glances up at Tashina, who’s frowning at him. He tries to elaborate. “Well, not fought, exactly - to be honest, I really wasn’t taking it seriously, just holding him off while my brother - who’s also a pirate, though not one of Pop's - could get away. But he was a pretty good opponent, all the same.”
A flicker of something indefinable crosses Tashina’s eyes, and her poker-face slams up for some reason. “Who?”
“A Marine - Rear-Admiral Smoker. Well, he was a Captain when I fought him.” Ace shrugs, uncomfortably aware that he probably shouldn’t be this let down by an enemy’s death. Except he hadn’t really thought of the man as an enemy, just an… obstacle? And besides, it had been good - two Logia, evenly matched, and despite it not really being a fight (and barely lasting ten minutes), he definitely ranks it in his top three.
Besides, the man was sex on two legs, and the obsession with phallic symbols didn’t hurt. Plus, Moku-Moku Fruit! Complementary Logia always makes for fun interaction.
Not any more though, unless someone else eats the fruit, and there’s usually at least a twenty year gap between a Devil Fruit user dying and their fruit being rediscovered. Little chance of another Moku-Mera fight. Luffy liked him as well, Ace recalls; mentioned it in one of the few letters they’d sent to each other. ‘Smokey-guy’. Cute name.
Tashina looks thoughtful, and not passively so - her currently-stern gaze is fixed on Ace, and she slips the unlit cigarette (trying to save them for a while) out from between her lips. “He’s dead?”
“Missing, presumed dead,” Ace corrects, re-reading the article, slower this time. They both know ’Missing, presumes dead’ in the Grand Line or New World means ’we haven’t found the body yet’, though. “Big fight nearly a month ago; as far as anyone can tell, he got stuck on some island and separated from his crew. When they managed to get back to the place he’d been fighting, a few days later, he was gone. They found his jitte, though, and he seemed sort of attached to it, so I doubt he’d leave it willingly.” Ace flicks the paper, feeling a little depressed. He hates bad news, especially second-hand and long after the fact. “I guess they’ve finally given up the search and made it public.”
“Can I see?” Tashina asks, and Ace hesitates. She sounds… odd. He can’t quite place it, and there’s something tugging at his head, beating his brain and screaming ‘Listen to me, you idiot!’, but it vanishes when he tries to grasp it. Did she know him? Maybe she was with him in the Academy?
Anyway, it hardly mattered - passing the prisoner (because that’s what she was, Ace reminded himself) the newspaper was forbidden, with good reason; that Captain who’d managed to get free because of it had nearly killed his guard, would have done so if not for the fact that his guard was called ‘Switchblade Dee’ for a reason.
But Ace looks at her to explain that he can’t, it isn’t allowed, and sees her eyes, and finds himself saying, “Well - don’t use it to escape.”
Tashina gives him the Are You An Idiot look he remembers from their first meeting. “What? It happened once!” Ace insists, and gets up.
As he passes the paper through the bars, her fingers brush his wrist, and Ace doesn’t feel bad about breaking the rules at all.
Mind you, that voice screaming in his head is back, but he’s sure if it were anything important, he’d have figured it out by now.
Day 7
Ace sneaks two small bottles of beer down to the cells to ‘celebrate two weeks of accident-free captivity!’, which actually makes Tashina laugh. It sounds slightly harsh, not really feminine, but Ace finds himself grinning like a loon at the sound.
He likes standing close enough to the cell to pass her the drink, as well, and if he leans there a little longer than necessary, neither of them mention it.
She’s tall, he notices now - maybe an inch shorter than himself, which is rare in a woman, considering Ace is 6‘ 1”. Then he thinks: rarer still to find in a beautiful woman (because most tall woman just don‘t do it for Ace), and that’s when he knows he’s in a fuck-load of trouble, because he’d decided nearly a week ago that she wasn’t beautiful.
Something of the panic must show in his face, because Tashina frowns at him slightly, and cocks her head, sending her hair brushing against her neck, a little above the shoulders, and Ace should not be noticing details like that.
That’s when he knows he’s in really deep shit.
“Just a thought,” he says cheerfully, mentally stabbing himself in the face, and wishes he felt worse than he does, because he knows he should. But then Tashina smirks and comments on how rare that must be to make him look so shocked, and Ace’s chair ends up closer to the cell than usual, and neither of them comments on it, and Ace is pretty sure he’s subconsciously panicking -
No. Slow down. Breathe.
It’s just a crush.
They spend the rest of the day talking and (dare he call it?) squabbling, and it barely feels like an hour, but he can remember every expression she made, and every time her eyes met his. When the night-shift guard comes to relieve him, Ace could swear he feels her gaze lingering on his retreating back for a few seconds.
But it’s probably just his imagination. Hopefully. Even though there’s a part of him that hopes it isn’t.
Day 8
It’s afternoon and Ace is pushing Tashina’s food-tray through the slot in the doors, when she looks at him - really looks, eyes half-lidded and eyes like a fucking hawk - from the opposite side of the cell and says, “You want to fuck me, don’t you?”
Ace freezes, despite himself, and they stare at each other for a couple of seconds before he manages to pull his hand back, lock the slot closed, and stop his face from flushing.
The moment’s gone, thank fuck, and they’re actually talking like normal a few minutes later, but Ace is still dazed and reeling from the sudden flash of want that ran through his mind and body, and sometimes when Tashina looks at him, it’s like an invitation.
Ace has never wanted so much to accept an invitation in his life.
Day 9
Ace does something he promised himself yesterday he wouldn’t do.
Okay, not exactly - yesterday he told himself he wouldn’t do a whole range of things which mostly boil down to one point, but he never actually, specifically promised he wouldn’t do this.
He’s touching her.
Her arm is outside the cell - cuffed, she won’t get free - and that damn predator gaze is on him again, though he refuses to look at it. He focuses on the cut instead, trying not to twitch or flinch under her watch, and ends up stroking one finger parallel to the wound before he can stop himself.
The air crackles.
The nurses allowed her a shower or bath or something, as they do every couple of days, and she smells clean and fresh and her. That shouldn’t even make sense, but it does. Ace thinks he might be going crazy, if he’s not already, and Pops is going to be completely in the right when he beats Ace to a pulp.
“It’s not bad, is it?” Tashina breathes, and Ace is fairly certain she’s not actually trying to sound sexy - it’s just his own mind trying to make him jump her, and he shouldn’t. Really. So he won’t. Maybe. No, definitely no jumping!
“It’s not bad,” he confirms, mostly repeating her words because he doesn’t trust himself not to end up Freudian-Slipping all over the place if he tries to speak using his own words. She feels warm.
Oh fuck, he’s so screwed.
He’s aware he should be doing something like, say, actually treating the cut, but his body’s forgotten how to move, so Ace just stares at the shallow line across her (smooth, pale) arm and tries not to fantasise about licking it. He mostly succeeds.
Tashina leans forwards slightly; he’s hyper-aware of her every movement at this range, and he should really be moving backwards, but still no motor control, and Ace closes his eyes, aware of what a Stupid Thing To Do this is when there’s a dangerous prisoner right by his side, but apparently he’s completely lost his mind.
There’s a feather-light touch to his wrist, and when Ace opens his eyes, the hand attached to the arm he was examining is moving gently, two of her fingers trailing softly up his lower arm, then back down his wrist and dancing over his own fingertips.
“Fuck,” Ace says, and turns and runs.
TO BE CONTINUED, OH LOL, PLZ STAB ME
Word Count: 4,835 (HOLY CRAP!)
Rating: PG-13?
Pairing: SmoAce, but not.
Disclaimer/Warnings: Uh - so danyellaskyler gave me this cracked-up plotbunny yesterday with Smoker who's become fem!Smoker, but Ace doesn't know, and Whitebeard does. Because I think she's mental. Did I say that? Sorry. Anyway, the bunny bit me, and this is part one. Hopefully of only two parts. And I haven't even explained why he's a woman yet. urgh.
Summary: See the warning. Really, there's no way to describe this.
Day 1
It had been a busy few months for Ace. Escaping Impel Down, getting some seastone, hunting down Blackbeard and beating the crud (and significant quantities of blood) out of him… well, he was quite looking forward to a nice rest back on his division flagship, or maybe Pop’s flagship. Blow up a few Marine ships, chat up some of the nurses - just relax, really.
So it was kind of a surprise to get back to Whitebeard and find the Moby Dick buzzing with gossip which he was completely lacking information on. And annoying. Definitely annoying.
He frowned, and poked Komura-san’s arm. “Something up?”
The man glanced over, still shuffling his cards, and shrugged. “There’s some chick in the holding cells. Been there nearly a week.”
Ace waited. “And?”
“We~ll,” the man drew out, leaning back and squinting at the sky. “Apparently - not that most of us have seen her, or nothin’ - apparently, she looks kind of like Pops. And the old man's having her treated real well, despite her bein’ a Marine prisoner - no torture or nothin’.”
Ace raised an eyebrow, slipping his hands in his pockets. “How old is she?”
“Old enough to be his daughter, if he had her old, or granddaughter, if he had kids young,” Komura replied boredly, never one to get into the gossip as well as most of the crew. Pirates were generally a chatty bunch, but Komura was a private person, more through a distinct lack of interests in other people’s lives than any shyness or stand-offishness. Ace privately regarded him as a bit of a prick, but most of the crew did as well, so it didn’t matter.
“Hm,” said Ace thoughtfully, considered this information, decided that unless Pops gave him orders about it than it had little to do with him, and went off to find some food.
Besides, he really didn’t want to imagine the old man ever having had sex. Ick.
Day 2
A day after being back, Ace’s division flagship arrived near the Moby Dick, and dropped anchor. There were people for him to assign, reassign, promote, demote, get drunk with, or more than one, which kept Ace firmly on the Moby Dick, where he was happy to swap stories and get congratulated on killing Blackbeard. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to hear the full tale of what he did with the drinking straw, the ping-pong ball, and the stuffed marmoset.
Ace got drunk multiple times, sobered himself up with his Devil Fruit multiple times, and failed to get laid multiple times. Damn teasing nurses. The fourth woman to approach, however, he didn’t flirt with, because this was Nokano-san, who apart from having trained on Drum Island, also acted as one of senchou’s top aides. She could also slap really hard.
“Drink?” Ace offered politely, managing not to spill the bottle down her front. The men he was drinking with groaned at his not taking the opportunity to soak her, and then flinched back as Nokano narrowed her eyes slightly and pursed her mouth.
“No thank you, Ace-san,” she declined as one man fell to the floor, twitching, under her gaze. “I have orders for you, from senchou. Please make yourself sober and follow me.”
“Now?”
She slapped him.
“Now,” Ace decided, and burned away the alcohol in his system (what a waste).
-
“Afternoon!” Ace beams as he approaches the cell holding the prisoner, although he very pointedly doesn’t look at her much. It doesn’t matter whether she looks like Pops, so he’s not going to go looking for similarities. Honest.
Much.
The woman looks at him with such intense loathing that Ace wonders whether he killed her kitten once or something. “Portgas,” she growls, honest-to-fuck growls, and Ace has heard his name said like a curse-word before, but he generally knows the reason why.
“Oh, you know me?” he asks, feeling rather amused, and then mentally kicks himself, and says, “Oh, right, you must have seen the posters. Anyway, Pops' put me in charge of you, so I’m going to be outside your cell for most of the time you‘re here. Apparently I need a ‘break’, not that I do, I bet Kai put him up to it, that bastard,” and then stops muttering because the woman’s looking at him like he’s nuts.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t really like Kai, and, uh, the feeling’s mutual.” he explains lamely, and mentally kicks himself again.
“Are you sure you’re the second division Commander?” the woman asks pointedly, sounding disbelieving and a little disgusted, and Ace grins at the question.
“Yep! Any case, wake me up if, I dunno, you’re making an escape attempt or something, okay? Night!” He grabs the chair that’s sitting outside her cell and slumps down in it, arms crossed as he leans back and prepares to sleep.
The woman sounds like she wants to hit him, which she probably does, because she chokes out, “Aren’t you meant to be guarding me?”
Hm. Maybe? Ace frowns, opens his eyes, and considers this. “I’m not sure,” he admits honestly. “Pops just said I’m in charge of you, so I don’t know whether he meant to actually, y’know, guard you, or just make sure you eat and stuff.”
“And you didn’t think to ask.”
“I’m still kind of drunk. Not much,” Ace hastens to add, “But a little.”
The woman rolls her eyes, and Ace takes advantage of that to give her a quick once-over. She does kind of look like senchou… not a particularly feminine build, though still obviously a woman. Good muscle-tone, not disgustingly so, jawline perhaps a little too strong to classify as beautiful. Handsome, maybe. Early thirties, but the neck-length, greyish hair means she could be younger and it’s just aging her in his eyes. Average breasts, six, maybe seven out of ten.
Ace wouldn’t mind waking up with her, though she’s older than his usual sort, but the permanent glare on her face makes him think twice about turning on the full range of Ace-Patented-Charm. Besides, if she is related to the old man, Whitebeard will probably kill him. Slowly.
That wouldn’t be good for his promotion prospects.
Handsome Prisoner Woman is definitely a high-ranking officer, despite the casual clothes she’s wearing - probably courtesy of the nurses, there aren’t many female pirates in senchou’s crew - because her stubborn I’m Still In Charge Here, Pirate Scum bearing and tone are firmly in place even as she grumbles what are probably insults under her breath, slouching back against the cell wall.
“So, name?” Ace asks brightly.
She stares at him, as if she thinks he’s an idiot. Oh, right. She does. “What.” It’s a statement, not a question. Actually, it’s more of an order. Definitely high-ranking. Ace wonders whether she’s that authoritative in bed NO, DON’T GO THERE.
“Your name,” he lays out patiently. “You know mine, seeing as you were kind enough to say it when I came in. What’s yours?”
She stares at him some more, only the glare’s gone now. She looks… taken aback. “You don’t know?”
“Uh - no? Pops hasn’t told anyone.” And I forgot to ask that, too, Ace doesn’t say, because he’d have to kick himself again.
The prisoner seems to struggle with something in her head, eyes flicking to the side. “Commodore,” she allows finally. “Commodore... Tashina.”
“Wow,” Ace says, impressed by what an utterly crap lie that is, but not finding the heart to point it out. “That’s a really bad name. Did your parents hate you? Ah, no offence!”
She Glares. Capital g.
“Oh, I guess that was pretty offensive, huh - sorry.”
Well, at least there’s a good thing to ‘Tashina’ thinking he’s an idiot; she relaxes almost imperceptibly, which tells Ace she thinks he’s dumb enough to believe it.
“So, Tashina-san,” he cheerfully says, “how’s your week been?”
“Shut the fuck up and sleep, pirate” replies Tashina, who obviously has no sense of humour, so Ace shrugs and follows her helpful advice. Whoever she is, he decides before he drifts off, she’s a Grade-A bitch, but fun with it. He has a few tricks for dealing with those sorts of people…
Day 3
Tashina, as she still thinks he thinks she’s called (try saying that ten times fast), is a little friendlier the next day, because she stops glaring at Ace a couple of seconds after he comes into the prison area that morning, and goes back to glowering at nothing in particular.
“Can I call you Tashy-chan?” Ace asks, wide-eyed and sweetly, and can’t resist a snigger at the look of Hell Hath No Fury that she sends him, which only increases when she hears him laugh.
Still, you can’t scare a division commander - or a D - with a glare, no matter how bad it is, especially because a D just takes it as an invitation; in this case, to wind her up some more. “I’ve been talking to the nurses,” he continues, “and they say that if you like, you can borrow some of their makeup. Apparently that sort of thing cheers women up-”
The empty food-bowl is, apparently, shallow enough to fit through the cell bars, and Tashina is a frighteningly good aim, because it manages to leave a small cut on Ace’s shoulder as he dodges. “Maybe not,” he allows, and grins happily at her, which makes her give a strangled noise of something which to Ace sounds like his victory, ha!, and she clenches her hands likes she’s imagining them around his neck.
“You. Are deliberately. Pissing me off,” she whispers, low and husky and vicious, and Ace hears every word perfectly, just as she wanted. Another notch on the Proof of Officer list.
“Just a little,” he smiles, plopping his chin in one hand and lounging on the seat, enjoying her futile, simmering rage. “C’mon, don’t tell me you just want to sit around doing nothing all day. I bet you’re bored out of your skull. Poker?”
Glare, Glare, Glare, like a damn machine. “I don’t play with pirates.”
Ace pouts. “But all sulk and no play makes Tashy-chan a dull girl!”
He manages to dodge the tray, because he’s expecting it, though the furious roar of “I DON’T SULK!” followed by, “DON’T CALL ME THAT RIDICULOUS NAME, YOU PIRATE TRASH!” is a wonderful addition.
Maybe he should thank Kai after all?
It’s interesting to see the chains binding her are seastone though, because despite that she looks physically stronger than most female Marines, they still only use the seastone chains for either people who are unbelievably strong, or Devil Fruit users, and Ace guesses she’s the latter. Paramecia, probably; he knows of every Logia and quite a few of the Zoan in the Marines. Doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous.
Another mental kicking, because she’s a Marine, and a high-ranking one. Obviously she’s dangerous, despite her current situation. That’s fine. Ace has always enjoyed playing with fire.
Day 4
By the next day, they’ve reached an unvoiced agreement. Ace doesn’t call her Tashy-chan (or any variation thereof) and holds back on the teasing, and Tashina condescends to play a few rounds of poker.
She has a master poker-face, utterly emotionless when she wants, but Ace can keep grinning through every round, no matter what hand he’s dealt, and being a Logia teaches a lot about self-control, mental and physical. Interestingly, she seems to have as fine a control as him. A particularly dangerous Paramecia or Zoan, perhaps?
Whatever. Point is, they’re pretty much equal, and instead of making this boring, it only sucks them in more - Ace knows it’s because she can’t stand losing to a pirate, and he just finds it hilarious to see the flicker of annoyance every time he wins - so fairly soon the game turns not just to trying to improve themselves, but to messing each other up with distractions.
“How long am I going to be held?” Tashina drawls lazily, but Ace keeps his smile fixed, and only waggles his eyebrows at her.
“As long as the old man wants you held,” is the reply, but then his grin widens and he flutters his eyelashes in mock flirtation. “But if you’d rather I held you, my Tashina-san…”
She makes a noise of amusement, as though not sure whether to throw something else at him (not that there is much - Ace has learned his lessons and makes sure nothing is left in the cell after her meals, now) or laugh.
Tashina, he muses, has certainly lightened up a bit after she won the cigarettes in the second round they’d played. Ace doesn’t smoke (not even when he’s on fire, ha ha, yes, he’s heard all the jokes, shut up now) but it wasn’t hard to notice the small, fluttery motions of her jaw as if manipulating a cigarette that wasn’t there, or the fixation she had with rolling the spoon around her mouth. Mm, oral fixation. No - he had to resist the urge to make jokes.
They’re halfway through the eighth game when Nokano-san and a pair of her subordinates appear, dressed in their usual working clothes (Ace sometimes wonders who designed them, but he’s scared to ask), and the Chief Nurse says coolly, “We need more blood, please.” That isn’t a request.
Ace watches with bemusement as Tashina scowls and shoves one arm through the cell bars, the lesser nurses working with practiced movements as they cuff the hand to one of the bars and start drawing blood with a syringe. They’re all on alert - none may be up to Commodore-standard, but the least of them would do a good job of kicking an Ensign’s ass, even in those short dresses. A perfect knowledge of human anatomy and a skill with scalpels is good for several things.
They leave as swiftly as they came, Nokano-san raising an eyebrow at the playing cards and nodding politely to Ace, and Tashina draws her un-cuffed arm back into the cell. A pity, Ace think, because it was a very attractive arm. Soft, pale skin wrapped over lean muscles. He wonders what her legs look like under those jeans, and then mentally kicks himself again, which he seems to be doing a lot, lately.
“Give blood often?” he questions curiously, trying to sneak a look at her cards, and the woman snorts and pulls them closer to her.
“Shut it and play, Portgas.”
He rolls his shoulders, honestly interested now. “No, really. Are you ill or something?”
“Or something.”
“Huh.” Ace considers his own hand. It’s a bad one. “Is it contagious?”
Tashina raises her head and looks him slowly over, head to toe, before a small smirk touches her eyes and mouth. “I wish.”
Ace can’t hold back the laugh, even as she throws down her cards and kicks his ass, and he finds himself thinking there’s something pretty about her when she smiles.
Day 5
Ace is disappointed (and surprised by the fact he isn’t surprised by that) when he doesn’t get to go to Tashina’s cell first thing in the morning, because Pops wants to speak to him.
“I hear you’ve been getting along with the prisoner,” the old man announces, and Ace manages to not look at Nokano-san, who’s standing emotionlessly by his massive chair, arms crossed demurely.
“Uh - yes. Should I not, Pops?” He finds himself hoping it’s not true, because much as he’d like to sail off and beat a few people senseless, maybe visit Luffy, he’s kinda liking the time he spends with Tashina. She’s sarcastic and biting, and has an intelligence - a mix of raw cunning and refined intellect - that’s a rare thing among pirates, even most at a high level. Oogetsu, for example, may be second in command of the third division, but Ace has never bothered to start up a conversation with him, unless it’s about when to scream ‘CHARGE!’.
Plus, she’s not bad to look at. And those moments when he can get her to smirk, and that perma-scowl vanishes? Damn, that’s good.
Whitebeard studies Ace with a strange gleam of what could be amusement in his eyes. “It’s fine. Has she told you anything about herself?”
Ace blinks. “Well - only her name and rank. I haven’t been, uh, interrogating her or anything.” Oh, shit, was he meant to have been? Was there some implication he’d missed thanks to that oh-so-tiny, practically-not-there, honest, drop of alcohol dancing around his bloodstream? Ace’s stomach suddenly drops at the thought of hurting her, but it’s fine, because the old man waves a hand and says:
“That’s fine. What name did she give?”
Aha. Was she actually his family? Did senchou know who she was, or was he playing along with a fake name too? No, otherwise she’d have given that ridiculous name without thinking about it. So Pops definitely knew, and hadn’t spread the name around, which was odd, because she’d been a prisoner for nearly two weeks now. You’d have thought someone would have learned it from the newspapers, at least.
“Commodore ‘Tashina’, Pops,” Ace replies, with a quirky grin as he says the name, and the Emperor gives a loud chuckle of laughter.
“Tashina, huh? Well, that’ll do. Now, brat, I think you have a task to get back to, right?”
So Ace finds himself hurrying over to the cells, confused as what the heck is going on and what game the old man’s playing, but he can’t help but cheer up when Tashina looks up as he comes in and - just a flicker before she can hide it - she actually looks pleased to see him.
They only play a couple of rounds of poker before Tashina starts teaching him how to play Badger in the Port, which is the weirdest-named game Ace has ever heard of, and one of the most confusing, which is probably why it’s a Marine game. Tashina is forced to admit she doesn’t know whether the ‘Port’ in the title is meant to be a harbour or the wine, but agrees with Ace that whoever thought up the original rules was probably fairly drunk.
Her hands, Ace notices as she deals, are intriguingly graceful. He likes to watch, so he does.
Day 6
This morning, Ace is reading the paper to her as he has the last few days - with his own insightful (read: mocking) comments, after which they’ll debate (read: bicker) over whichever articles are of interest to them. Ace doesn’t let Tashina have the paper because a) she could push the pages between her chains and skin and possibly get her Devil Fruit powers back - they’d learned that one the hard way - and b) because he finds it funny to leave her guessing as he reacts dramatically to articles before reading them, acting like every one is far more shocking than it is, and then mournfully insisting that he can’t possibly let her see them.
What? Her glares are half-hearted at best now, and he’s pretty sure she find it nearly as funny as he does. Besides, those glares kind of suit her.
He’s just finished reciting the guests at some boring international banquet in as excited a tone as he can manage, leaving dramatic pauses and inserting exclamations of awe as necessary, which he can see is leaving Tashina struggling not to laugh as she slouches against the wall, arms crossed (which does interesting things to her breasts, not that he’s looked or anything), when he turns the page and spots the main article there.
Ace pauses, brow furrowing as he speed-reads it, and Tashina seems to realise immediately that he’s not play-acting this time. “What is it?”
“Huh,” murmurs Ace, feeling a strange sense of disappointment. For himself and for Luffy, as well as for the man who’s the focus of the article - he deserved more. If not a longer life, than at least an article before some stupid state meal. “Just someone I fought once.”
There’s silence, enough that Ace glances up at Tashina, who’s frowning at him. He tries to elaborate. “Well, not fought, exactly - to be honest, I really wasn’t taking it seriously, just holding him off while my brother - who’s also a pirate, though not one of Pop's - could get away. But he was a pretty good opponent, all the same.”
A flicker of something indefinable crosses Tashina’s eyes, and her poker-face slams up for some reason. “Who?”
“A Marine - Rear-Admiral Smoker. Well, he was a Captain when I fought him.” Ace shrugs, uncomfortably aware that he probably shouldn’t be this let down by an enemy’s death. Except he hadn’t really thought of the man as an enemy, just an… obstacle? And besides, it had been good - two Logia, evenly matched, and despite it not really being a fight (and barely lasting ten minutes), he definitely ranks it in his top three.
Besides, the man was sex on two legs, and the obsession with phallic symbols didn’t hurt. Plus, Moku-Moku Fruit! Complementary Logia always makes for fun interaction.
Not any more though, unless someone else eats the fruit, and there’s usually at least a twenty year gap between a Devil Fruit user dying and their fruit being rediscovered. Little chance of another Moku-Mera fight. Luffy liked him as well, Ace recalls; mentioned it in one of the few letters they’d sent to each other. ‘Smokey-guy’. Cute name.
Tashina looks thoughtful, and not passively so - her currently-stern gaze is fixed on Ace, and she slips the unlit cigarette (trying to save them for a while) out from between her lips. “He’s dead?”
“Missing, presumed dead,” Ace corrects, re-reading the article, slower this time. They both know ’Missing, presumes dead’ in the Grand Line or New World means ’we haven’t found the body yet’, though. “Big fight nearly a month ago; as far as anyone can tell, he got stuck on some island and separated from his crew. When they managed to get back to the place he’d been fighting, a few days later, he was gone. They found his jitte, though, and he seemed sort of attached to it, so I doubt he’d leave it willingly.” Ace flicks the paper, feeling a little depressed. He hates bad news, especially second-hand and long after the fact. “I guess they’ve finally given up the search and made it public.”
“Can I see?” Tashina asks, and Ace hesitates. She sounds… odd. He can’t quite place it, and there’s something tugging at his head, beating his brain and screaming ‘Listen to me, you idiot!’, but it vanishes when he tries to grasp it. Did she know him? Maybe she was with him in the Academy?
Anyway, it hardly mattered - passing the prisoner (because that’s what she was, Ace reminded himself) the newspaper was forbidden, with good reason; that Captain who’d managed to get free because of it had nearly killed his guard, would have done so if not for the fact that his guard was called ‘Switchblade Dee’ for a reason.
But Ace looks at her to explain that he can’t, it isn’t allowed, and sees her eyes, and finds himself saying, “Well - don’t use it to escape.”
Tashina gives him the Are You An Idiot look he remembers from their first meeting. “What? It happened once!” Ace insists, and gets up.
As he passes the paper through the bars, her fingers brush his wrist, and Ace doesn’t feel bad about breaking the rules at all.
Mind you, that voice screaming in his head is back, but he’s sure if it were anything important, he’d have figured it out by now.
Day 7
Ace sneaks two small bottles of beer down to the cells to ‘celebrate two weeks of accident-free captivity!’, which actually makes Tashina laugh. It sounds slightly harsh, not really feminine, but Ace finds himself grinning like a loon at the sound.
He likes standing close enough to the cell to pass her the drink, as well, and if he leans there a little longer than necessary, neither of them mention it.
She’s tall, he notices now - maybe an inch shorter than himself, which is rare in a woman, considering Ace is 6‘ 1”. Then he thinks: rarer still to find in a beautiful woman (because most tall woman just don‘t do it for Ace), and that’s when he knows he’s in a fuck-load of trouble, because he’d decided nearly a week ago that she wasn’t beautiful.
Something of the panic must show in his face, because Tashina frowns at him slightly, and cocks her head, sending her hair brushing against her neck, a little above the shoulders, and Ace should not be noticing details like that.
That’s when he knows he’s in really deep shit.
“Just a thought,” he says cheerfully, mentally stabbing himself in the face, and wishes he felt worse than he does, because he knows he should. But then Tashina smirks and comments on how rare that must be to make him look so shocked, and Ace’s chair ends up closer to the cell than usual, and neither of them comments on it, and Ace is pretty sure he’s subconsciously panicking -
No. Slow down. Breathe.
It’s just a crush.
They spend the rest of the day talking and (dare he call it?) squabbling, and it barely feels like an hour, but he can remember every expression she made, and every time her eyes met his. When the night-shift guard comes to relieve him, Ace could swear he feels her gaze lingering on his retreating back for a few seconds.
But it’s probably just his imagination. Hopefully. Even though there’s a part of him that hopes it isn’t.
Day 8
It’s afternoon and Ace is pushing Tashina’s food-tray through the slot in the doors, when she looks at him - really looks, eyes half-lidded and eyes like a fucking hawk - from the opposite side of the cell and says, “You want to fuck me, don’t you?”
Ace freezes, despite himself, and they stare at each other for a couple of seconds before he manages to pull his hand back, lock the slot closed, and stop his face from flushing.
The moment’s gone, thank fuck, and they’re actually talking like normal a few minutes later, but Ace is still dazed and reeling from the sudden flash of want that ran through his mind and body, and sometimes when Tashina looks at him, it’s like an invitation.
Ace has never wanted so much to accept an invitation in his life.
Day 9
Ace does something he promised himself yesterday he wouldn’t do.
Okay, not exactly - yesterday he told himself he wouldn’t do a whole range of things which mostly boil down to one point, but he never actually, specifically promised he wouldn’t do this.
He’s touching her.
Her arm is outside the cell - cuffed, she won’t get free - and that damn predator gaze is on him again, though he refuses to look at it. He focuses on the cut instead, trying not to twitch or flinch under her watch, and ends up stroking one finger parallel to the wound before he can stop himself.
The air crackles.
The nurses allowed her a shower or bath or something, as they do every couple of days, and she smells clean and fresh and her. That shouldn’t even make sense, but it does. Ace thinks he might be going crazy, if he’s not already, and Pops is going to be completely in the right when he beats Ace to a pulp.
“It’s not bad, is it?” Tashina breathes, and Ace is fairly certain she’s not actually trying to sound sexy - it’s just his own mind trying to make him jump her, and he shouldn’t. Really. So he won’t. Maybe. No, definitely no jumping!
“It’s not bad,” he confirms, mostly repeating her words because he doesn’t trust himself not to end up Freudian-Slipping all over the place if he tries to speak using his own words. She feels warm.
Oh fuck, he’s so screwed.
He’s aware he should be doing something like, say, actually treating the cut, but his body’s forgotten how to move, so Ace just stares at the shallow line across her (smooth, pale) arm and tries not to fantasise about licking it. He mostly succeeds.
Tashina leans forwards slightly; he’s hyper-aware of her every movement at this range, and he should really be moving backwards, but still no motor control, and Ace closes his eyes, aware of what a Stupid Thing To Do this is when there’s a dangerous prisoner right by his side, but apparently he’s completely lost his mind.
There’s a feather-light touch to his wrist, and when Ace opens his eyes, the hand attached to the arm he was examining is moving gently, two of her fingers trailing softly up his lower arm, then back down his wrist and dancing over his own fingertips.
“Fuck,” Ace says, and turns and runs.
TO BE CONTINUED, OH LOL, PLZ STAB ME