Oneshot by New Member
Hullo! I'm Hoseki. A fan of Coby/Meppo, of course; it's not my OTP, but it's adorable and has a good dynamic. So I ficced them. One thing that bothers me about a lot of fic for them I've read is how authors ignore Coby's big-ass Luffy!crush, hence the basic theme of this piece. I've been trying to write this for a while, but only recently did I realize it needed AU to work properly. This is a pretty rough draft, so concrit is eagerly sought.
Title: Untitled (ideas?)
Pairing/Characters: Helmeppo/Coby?Luffy
Rating/Triggers: T/PG-13 for a brief, vague mention of sexual violence
Word count: 1428
Summary: Cop/gangster AU. Coby is distracted from his relationship with Helmeppo by thoughts of Luffy. Helmeppo calls him out on it.
They were eating Thai food-- warm, filling, and best of all, cheap-- at their favorite restaurant when the topic turned, as it inevitably did, to Monkey D. Luffy.
“I heard his gang controls over fifty percent of the city these days,” said Coby, almost glowing with fervent admiration. “The Strawhats are listed as one of the fastest-growing gangs in history, and it's all due to him.”
Helmeppo glanced quickly around the shadowy dining room, waving for his fiancé to shush. “Coby! God, I swear, if Sergeant Garp heard you talking like that about his,” his voice dropped to indicate a secret parenthetical remark, “grandson,” he coughed theatrically and went on. “like that, he'd flip a shit. He'd have you by the throat.”
“Like what?” Coby frowned. “What's odd about two police officers talking about a famous criminal? Sarge knows Luffy's a big name.”
Helmeppo stared. “You really don't know what I'm talking about,” he murmured. “Coby, stop sounding like you're so... in love with him! It's not right.”
There was a tense silence as Coby processed the accusation, face growing redder. “What... I'm not!” he protested, but it was too late. Helmeppo knew.
His face was pale in contrast to Coby's vibrant blush. “How stupid can I get?” he asked rhetorically. “You do love him. How can you agree to marry a person when you love someone else?” It was only with great difficulty that he did not begin to cry, or raise his voice, or do something dramatic like tear the pretty golden band off his finger.
“Oh, please!” Coby's temper, usually hard to rouse, flared up. “Like I ever scolded you for having a crush on Captain Momonga. Way to call the kettle black.”
Helmeppo didn't splutter at mention of his attraction to their superior officer, which was unusual. Instead, a hard crease formed between his eyebrows. “That's different.”
“Why? Tell me, because I don't see how.”
“For one thing,” Helmeppo began, ticking reasons off on his fingers. “The Captain is married and straight and doesn't know I exist, so I don't have a chance. For another, he's not a criminal and thus my natural enemy whom I am sworn to hunt down and bring to justice. And he's not my best friend who saved my life. Not to mention I wasn't this close to joining his gang slash harem before I ever met you.”
Coby paused. “Those are only rumors, you know. Personally, I don't think Luffy would ever preside over nightly, drug-fueled orgies. And Zoro didn't seem to be the type when I knew him, either.”
Helmeppo threw up his hands. “Not the point! Very much not the point. This is the point: you don't compete with Captain Momonga. Why do I have to with Strawhat?”
Coby glanced away guiltily, like a criminal seeking escape from interrogation. Like an adulterer caught in the act, though Helmeppo was almost sure he would never consummate his tainted friendship with the world-class criminal. Almost. “What do you want from me?” he asked quietly. “I can't stop loving him. You know what he did for me. I wouldn't even have met you without him. He saved my life.”
That brought Helmeppo up short. What did he want? It wasn't like he could demand that Coby stop seeing the gangster, since they almost never saw each other as it was. It would be fruitless to insist that Coby stop loving him-- fruitless and painful, since Coby would try, bless him, try and fail and feel awful about it. “Just,” he said, and stopped. Tried again. “Just be with me when we're together. Don't hold my hand and wonder about his. Feel mine.” To emphasize the point, he reached across the table and gently took Coby's cold hand in his own. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” The automatic nature of the reply did not lessen its truth, but Coby was still elsewhere. Years ago, driving a beat-up old car for the man who just busted him out of the Iron Mace's gang. His heart is still racing, but Luffy is unflappable in shotgun, laughing and joking and eager to get to the Shell detention center and recruit his first man.
In a moment of silence, Coby speaks for the first time since they left. “You haven't asked me to join your gang, Luffy,” he says, the words coming out more hurt than he'd ever intended. “Am I that weak?”
“No!” Luffy laughs. His face is somewhat twisted from an old scar under his left eye, but it expresses joy readily. “You said your dream was to be a police officer, right? Well, you obviously can't be both an officer and a gangster. So I'm not going to ask you, like you're not going to ask me to go straight.”
Luffy? Go straight? The thought is so mad Coby almost misses his turn. He offers a tentative smile. “But that makes us enemies, Luffy. I'd have to arrest you one day.”
“Fat chance!” His beam is impossibly wide. “You're too weak!” And before Coby can object that he'll get stronger as a lawman, Luffy leans forward and kisses him full on the lips.
Coby has been kissed before-- not a lot, but he has-- but he's never been kissed by Luffy, who is so warm and smiles through the whole process and lets out a happy laugh when he's done. This time Coby really does miss his turn.
“But good luck!” his dark eyes sparkle, and he's silent the rest of the way, lost in his grand designs.
They don't see each other again until Sergeant Garp bursts into the Galley-La construction firm's main office building like a hurricane, supposedly to arrest the notorious gangster but really to catch up with his grandson. Coby and Helmeppo are already partners in more ways than one, but Coby steals a moment alone with Luffy.
“You got stronger!” says the criminal excitedly. “I knew you would!”
“So did you,” says Coby, suddenly shy.
“Yeah. You'll have to get a lot stronger to arrest me. But, wow! Training with Gramps! That'll do the trick. Good plan, Coby!”
He blushes with pleasure at the compliment, even though coming to work under Sergeant Garp was more the end result of a happy series of coincidences than the fruit of any clever design. “So, uh,” he says, seeking conversation material for his idol. “How've you been?” Lame, but serviceable.
“Good! Up and down. Things've been real crazy, with Robin and Usopp and Franky...” he trails off. Some of the gang drama is known to the police, but Coby wonders what gets left out of the official reports. “What about you?”
“Amazing! I think I really could make Inspector soon, Luffy.” Without transition, Coby's thoughts go abruptly dark. He's close to Luffy, close to arresting him, even, to handcuffing him and separating him from those nouveau nakama and taking him to a dank cell and damning them both for making him love a gangster to distraction. These ideas are not completely new to the young officer, but their sudden intensity stops him short and deepens his blush. “Um...”
He never finds new words, because Luffy has kissed him again, and it's like before but more so because Luffy has become more powerful in the interim, more assured and confident and self-contained, and Coby is different too, closer to understanding this man he admires so much who may well forever elude capture. But even if Coby did have him in handcuffs, he realizes, he could never dominate him, could never master him as he had just imagined so vividly. The first reason is that it would be a vile desecration of a holy site and an evil act; the second is that no mortal bindings can contain his personality and his ambition. He waves his fantasy of control goodbye with no regrets and smiles into Luffy's lips and accepts that he will always bottom here.
He leaves soon after with his commanding officer and his boyfriend.
Coby broke from his memories and looked into Helmeppo's eyes, which were too bright from emotion. “I love you,” he repeated. “I want to be with you, not him.” It was a good lie.
They kissed softly over Thai dishes, and told themselves they were happy.
I apparently can't write a simple story without doing something experimental, hence the tense change. The basic idea there is that Coby's memories of Luffy are much realer and more present-tense than his relationship with Helmeppo, which is in the background. Any extension of this story would probably be in the conditional, and be Coby's suppositions about what being 'with' Luffy would be like, with the ultimate realization that it would be intense but crazymaking, since this Luffy-interpretation treats all his friends the same, so Coby couldn't have anything 'special' with him.
The flashbacks and ultimately counter-pairing ending were not planned from the start, but the Coby I wrote ended up being too conflicted to settle down and let himself love two people and be with only one. Additionally, the '?' notation between Coby and Luffy's name in the header was at first a typo, but I kept it since it implies a mysterious bond of sorts that is not a typical romantic attachment.
Behind-the-scenes information: Captain Momonga is married to AU!Hancock, who is a member of the Shichibukai bounty hunting band. I... kind of want to write their story now. Nuts.
In summation: I give you story. Here it is. Please tell me of ways I could make it better, including a title, grammatical fixes (I bet there is at least one place I was tense-inconsistent, hehe), and general concrit.
Title: Untitled (ideas?)
Pairing/Characters: Helmeppo/Coby?Luffy
Rating/Triggers: T/PG-13 for a brief, vague mention of sexual violence
Word count: 1428
Summary: Cop/gangster AU. Coby is distracted from his relationship with Helmeppo by thoughts of Luffy. Helmeppo calls him out on it.
They were eating Thai food-- warm, filling, and best of all, cheap-- at their favorite restaurant when the topic turned, as it inevitably did, to Monkey D. Luffy.
“I heard his gang controls over fifty percent of the city these days,” said Coby, almost glowing with fervent admiration. “The Strawhats are listed as one of the fastest-growing gangs in history, and it's all due to him.”
Helmeppo glanced quickly around the shadowy dining room, waving for his fiancé to shush. “Coby! God, I swear, if Sergeant Garp heard you talking like that about his,” his voice dropped to indicate a secret parenthetical remark, “grandson,” he coughed theatrically and went on. “like that, he'd flip a shit. He'd have you by the throat.”
“Like what?” Coby frowned. “What's odd about two police officers talking about a famous criminal? Sarge knows Luffy's a big name.”
Helmeppo stared. “You really don't know what I'm talking about,” he murmured. “Coby, stop sounding like you're so... in love with him! It's not right.”
There was a tense silence as Coby processed the accusation, face growing redder. “What... I'm not!” he protested, but it was too late. Helmeppo knew.
His face was pale in contrast to Coby's vibrant blush. “How stupid can I get?” he asked rhetorically. “You do love him. How can you agree to marry a person when you love someone else?” It was only with great difficulty that he did not begin to cry, or raise his voice, or do something dramatic like tear the pretty golden band off his finger.
“Oh, please!” Coby's temper, usually hard to rouse, flared up. “Like I ever scolded you for having a crush on Captain Momonga. Way to call the kettle black.”
Helmeppo didn't splutter at mention of his attraction to their superior officer, which was unusual. Instead, a hard crease formed between his eyebrows. “That's different.”
“Why? Tell me, because I don't see how.”
“For one thing,” Helmeppo began, ticking reasons off on his fingers. “The Captain is married and straight and doesn't know I exist, so I don't have a chance. For another, he's not a criminal and thus my natural enemy whom I am sworn to hunt down and bring to justice. And he's not my best friend who saved my life. Not to mention I wasn't this close to joining his gang slash harem before I ever met you.”
Coby paused. “Those are only rumors, you know. Personally, I don't think Luffy would ever preside over nightly, drug-fueled orgies. And Zoro didn't seem to be the type when I knew him, either.”
Helmeppo threw up his hands. “Not the point! Very much not the point. This is the point: you don't compete with Captain Momonga. Why do I have to with Strawhat?”
Coby glanced away guiltily, like a criminal seeking escape from interrogation. Like an adulterer caught in the act, though Helmeppo was almost sure he would never consummate his tainted friendship with the world-class criminal. Almost. “What do you want from me?” he asked quietly. “I can't stop loving him. You know what he did for me. I wouldn't even have met you without him. He saved my life.”
That brought Helmeppo up short. What did he want? It wasn't like he could demand that Coby stop seeing the gangster, since they almost never saw each other as it was. It would be fruitless to insist that Coby stop loving him-- fruitless and painful, since Coby would try, bless him, try and fail and feel awful about it. “Just,” he said, and stopped. Tried again. “Just be with me when we're together. Don't hold my hand and wonder about his. Feel mine.” To emphasize the point, he reached across the table and gently took Coby's cold hand in his own. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” The automatic nature of the reply did not lessen its truth, but Coby was still elsewhere. Years ago, driving a beat-up old car for the man who just busted him out of the Iron Mace's gang. His heart is still racing, but Luffy is unflappable in shotgun, laughing and joking and eager to get to the Shell detention center and recruit his first man.
In a moment of silence, Coby speaks for the first time since they left. “You haven't asked me to join your gang, Luffy,” he says, the words coming out more hurt than he'd ever intended. “Am I that weak?”
“No!” Luffy laughs. His face is somewhat twisted from an old scar under his left eye, but it expresses joy readily. “You said your dream was to be a police officer, right? Well, you obviously can't be both an officer and a gangster. So I'm not going to ask you, like you're not going to ask me to go straight.”
Luffy? Go straight? The thought is so mad Coby almost misses his turn. He offers a tentative smile. “But that makes us enemies, Luffy. I'd have to arrest you one day.”
“Fat chance!” His beam is impossibly wide. “You're too weak!” And before Coby can object that he'll get stronger as a lawman, Luffy leans forward and kisses him full on the lips.
Coby has been kissed before-- not a lot, but he has-- but he's never been kissed by Luffy, who is so warm and smiles through the whole process and lets out a happy laugh when he's done. This time Coby really does miss his turn.
“But good luck!” his dark eyes sparkle, and he's silent the rest of the way, lost in his grand designs.
They don't see each other again until Sergeant Garp bursts into the Galley-La construction firm's main office building like a hurricane, supposedly to arrest the notorious gangster but really to catch up with his grandson. Coby and Helmeppo are already partners in more ways than one, but Coby steals a moment alone with Luffy.
“You got stronger!” says the criminal excitedly. “I knew you would!”
“So did you,” says Coby, suddenly shy.
“Yeah. You'll have to get a lot stronger to arrest me. But, wow! Training with Gramps! That'll do the trick. Good plan, Coby!”
He blushes with pleasure at the compliment, even though coming to work under Sergeant Garp was more the end result of a happy series of coincidences than the fruit of any clever design. “So, uh,” he says, seeking conversation material for his idol. “How've you been?” Lame, but serviceable.
“Good! Up and down. Things've been real crazy, with Robin and Usopp and Franky...” he trails off. Some of the gang drama is known to the police, but Coby wonders what gets left out of the official reports. “What about you?”
“Amazing! I think I really could make Inspector soon, Luffy.” Without transition, Coby's thoughts go abruptly dark. He's close to Luffy, close to arresting him, even, to handcuffing him and separating him from those nouveau nakama and taking him to a dank cell and damning them both for making him love a gangster to distraction. These ideas are not completely new to the young officer, but their sudden intensity stops him short and deepens his blush. “Um...”
He never finds new words, because Luffy has kissed him again, and it's like before but more so because Luffy has become more powerful in the interim, more assured and confident and self-contained, and Coby is different too, closer to understanding this man he admires so much who may well forever elude capture. But even if Coby did have him in handcuffs, he realizes, he could never dominate him, could never master him as he had just imagined so vividly. The first reason is that it would be a vile desecration of a holy site and an evil act; the second is that no mortal bindings can contain his personality and his ambition. He waves his fantasy of control goodbye with no regrets and smiles into Luffy's lips and accepts that he will always bottom here.
He leaves soon after with his commanding officer and his boyfriend.
Coby broke from his memories and looked into Helmeppo's eyes, which were too bright from emotion. “I love you,” he repeated. “I want to be with you, not him.” It was a good lie.
They kissed softly over Thai dishes, and told themselves they were happy.
I apparently can't write a simple story without doing something experimental, hence the tense change. The basic idea there is that Coby's memories of Luffy are much realer and more present-tense than his relationship with Helmeppo, which is in the background. Any extension of this story would probably be in the conditional, and be Coby's suppositions about what being 'with' Luffy would be like, with the ultimate realization that it would be intense but crazymaking, since this Luffy-interpretation treats all his friends the same, so Coby couldn't have anything 'special' with him.
The flashbacks and ultimately counter-pairing ending were not planned from the start, but the Coby I wrote ended up being too conflicted to settle down and let himself love two people and be with only one. Additionally, the '?' notation between Coby and Luffy's name in the header was at first a typo, but I kept it since it implies a mysterious bond of sorts that is not a typical romantic attachment.
Behind-the-scenes information: Captain Momonga is married to AU!Hancock, who is a member of the Shichibukai bounty hunting band. I... kind of want to write their story now. Nuts.
In summation: I give you story. Here it is. Please tell me of ways I could make it better, including a title, grammatical fixes (I bet there is at least one place I was tense-inconsistent, hehe), and general concrit.