This ship is starting to feel almost normal. Hold me; I'm scared.
This bunny needs to quit sitting on me. It's like bunny!Misery. I wouldn't put it past it to have a sledgehammer somewhere on its fuzzy person specifically for breaking writer-ankles.
Title: Acquired Taste, Chapter Two: Not a Good Night
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Zeff and Smoker, round two. Advantage: Smoker.
Three months had passed, and the mystery vegetable man had not shown his face again. Smoker had pretty much given up on managing to catch the guy after the second month, and had mentally consigned him to the “Ones That Got Away” folder, subdivision: Occasional Wank Fodder. Admitting (even just to himself) that he’d let a probable pirate escape had rankled him, but he had little choice in the matter-the man had officially committed no crimes. Actually, officially he’d never been to this island.
Hina had damn near spit nails as the months had passed without any sign from their mystery man. She said-often and loudly when they were alone-that she wanted to see him again just so she could kick him right in the middle of his arrogant face. Then again, Hina didn’t just hold grudges. She treasured them, pampered them, sometimes took the old ones out just to polish them up a bit and show them off. She’d plotted eighteen different ways to make their vegetable man wish he’d never been born, and last he heard she was working on the nineteenth. He supposed everyone needed a hobby, but Hina’s frightened him sometimes.
Smoker, after giving up hope and spending a few weeks engaged in what Hina had called “sulking” (though he knew for certain that he wasn’t sulking, because he didn’t sulk), had finally reached a state of relative equanimity on the issue. Getting angry about it was pointless. Seriously, what were the chances that he was going to run into this guy on the street?
Pretty damn good, apparently.
Officially, Smoker and Hina were on a date-they’d both asked for a weekend pass at the same time, much to the amusement of their direct superiors.
Unofficially, Hina was certainly on a date, but it wasn’t with Smoker. Smoker had curves in entirely the wrong places to interest Hina, and vice versa. This arrangement kept the two of them from getting harassed too often, and Smoker got to sit in a bar and drink and watch people do stupid things. Win-win, as far as Smoker was concerned. When he got tired of that or ran out of money for booze, he walked the streets and thought about things. Justice. Order. Good-looking mystery men. Things like that.
Tonight was no different. Drink for a few hours; take a long, meandering walk with only himself for company. A pleasant, ordinary evening.
Except that he’d just spotted a familiar-looking blond head in the light from a restaurant window.
Smoker smiled, a quick flash of predatory teeth in the darkness. It wasn’t a windy night tonight.
****
Tonight, Zeff reflected, had not been a good night.
He’d had to come back to this stupid town again. It was the only place in the area with a decent-sized food market, and Captain Lawson had negotiated his way to a “business meeting” with a dangerous colleague here, both of them relying on the hanging threat of the Naval base to keep the other in line while they exchanged terms. This had been hard on both crews involved, as any number of things could go horrifically wrong with that plan and almost all of them ended in arrest and possible hanging.
So Captain Lawson could concentrate on abusing his god-given gift of rhetorical excellence, Zeff was standing outside this restaurant acting as lookout and trying to look inconspicuous. As the navigator was allergic to the word “inconspicuous” and the first mate couldn’t even spell it, Zeff had wound up with the short straw by default. No sleep for him tonight.
As there had been no great outcry after Zeff had nearly gotten caught here, the captain had assumed that the cadets Zeff had beaten had probably been too ashamed to report their failure. Such things had happened in the past, and with much higher-ranking Marines. Shopping had been a trial of his nerves and patience, but at least he’d managed to get it done in peace this time. The local produce seemed to have taken a bit of a dive in quality since he’d last been here, to his infinite dismay.
All told, Zeff was grumpy and bored and nervous-not a good combination. When the ground fog started creeping down the street, it took him a good five minutes to figure out what was wrong with it. As the first tendrils curled around his feet, he realized that the weather was quite wrong for fog of any kind, and it was rolling in from the direction of land instead of coming in off the sea-against the slight breeze. It also smelled wrong. It smelled like…
Cigar smoke. Familiar cigar smoke, actually. Zeff tensed and looked up and down the street, preparatory to dealing out swift pain to a certain stubborn baby Marine…
And suddenly he was wrapped head to toe in blinding, smothering white. He kicked and it just moved with him, he squirmed and it tightened, he opened his mouth to shout a warning and it practically shoved itself down his throat. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do a goddamn thing except wish for some kind of miracle rescue and curse Captain Lawson’s name and lineage in his head.
The last things Zeff thought before he passed out was that the smoke tasted like oven scrapings, and that this was a really shitty way to go.
Chapter Three: Contact
Chapter One: Not a Good Day
Title: Acquired Taste, Chapter Two: Not a Good Night
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Zeff and Smoker, round two. Advantage: Smoker.
Three months had passed, and the mystery vegetable man had not shown his face again. Smoker had pretty much given up on managing to catch the guy after the second month, and had mentally consigned him to the “Ones That Got Away” folder, subdivision: Occasional Wank Fodder. Admitting (even just to himself) that he’d let a probable pirate escape had rankled him, but he had little choice in the matter-the man had officially committed no crimes. Actually, officially he’d never been to this island.
Hina had damn near spit nails as the months had passed without any sign from their mystery man. She said-often and loudly when they were alone-that she wanted to see him again just so she could kick him right in the middle of his arrogant face. Then again, Hina didn’t just hold grudges. She treasured them, pampered them, sometimes took the old ones out just to polish them up a bit and show them off. She’d plotted eighteen different ways to make their vegetable man wish he’d never been born, and last he heard she was working on the nineteenth. He supposed everyone needed a hobby, but Hina’s frightened him sometimes.
Smoker, after giving up hope and spending a few weeks engaged in what Hina had called “sulking” (though he knew for certain that he wasn’t sulking, because he didn’t sulk), had finally reached a state of relative equanimity on the issue. Getting angry about it was pointless. Seriously, what were the chances that he was going to run into this guy on the street?
Pretty damn good, apparently.
Officially, Smoker and Hina were on a date-they’d both asked for a weekend pass at the same time, much to the amusement of their direct superiors.
Unofficially, Hina was certainly on a date, but it wasn’t with Smoker. Smoker had curves in entirely the wrong places to interest Hina, and vice versa. This arrangement kept the two of them from getting harassed too often, and Smoker got to sit in a bar and drink and watch people do stupid things. Win-win, as far as Smoker was concerned. When he got tired of that or ran out of money for booze, he walked the streets and thought about things. Justice. Order. Good-looking mystery men. Things like that.
Tonight was no different. Drink for a few hours; take a long, meandering walk with only himself for company. A pleasant, ordinary evening.
Except that he’d just spotted a familiar-looking blond head in the light from a restaurant window.
Smoker smiled, a quick flash of predatory teeth in the darkness. It wasn’t a windy night tonight.
****
Tonight, Zeff reflected, had not been a good night.
He’d had to come back to this stupid town again. It was the only place in the area with a decent-sized food market, and Captain Lawson had negotiated his way to a “business meeting” with a dangerous colleague here, both of them relying on the hanging threat of the Naval base to keep the other in line while they exchanged terms. This had been hard on both crews involved, as any number of things could go horrifically wrong with that plan and almost all of them ended in arrest and possible hanging.
So Captain Lawson could concentrate on abusing his god-given gift of rhetorical excellence, Zeff was standing outside this restaurant acting as lookout and trying to look inconspicuous. As the navigator was allergic to the word “inconspicuous” and the first mate couldn’t even spell it, Zeff had wound up with the short straw by default. No sleep for him tonight.
As there had been no great outcry after Zeff had nearly gotten caught here, the captain had assumed that the cadets Zeff had beaten had probably been too ashamed to report their failure. Such things had happened in the past, and with much higher-ranking Marines. Shopping had been a trial of his nerves and patience, but at least he’d managed to get it done in peace this time. The local produce seemed to have taken a bit of a dive in quality since he’d last been here, to his infinite dismay.
All told, Zeff was grumpy and bored and nervous-not a good combination. When the ground fog started creeping down the street, it took him a good five minutes to figure out what was wrong with it. As the first tendrils curled around his feet, he realized that the weather was quite wrong for fog of any kind, and it was rolling in from the direction of land instead of coming in off the sea-against the slight breeze. It also smelled wrong. It smelled like…
Cigar smoke. Familiar cigar smoke, actually. Zeff tensed and looked up and down the street, preparatory to dealing out swift pain to a certain stubborn baby Marine…
And suddenly he was wrapped head to toe in blinding, smothering white. He kicked and it just moved with him, he squirmed and it tightened, he opened his mouth to shout a warning and it practically shoved itself down his throat. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do a goddamn thing except wish for some kind of miracle rescue and curse Captain Lawson’s name and lineage in his head.
The last things Zeff thought before he passed out was that the smoke tasted like oven scrapings, and that this was a really shitty way to go.
Chapter Three: Contact
Chapter One: Not a Good Day